Solo Overnight Hammock Camp in a Thunderstorm P1. Calm Before the Storm

Good morning, guys. I hope you can hear those birds. This is the epitome of a nice spring day. Thanks for tuning in. I'm in the woods here by myself. I drove seven hours yesterday, slept at my friend's house, and headed out this morning alone to get to this spot. I've never been here before. This is a brand-new location. There's supposed to be a really nice river, about a 40-minute walk that way through the woods. It's supposed to thunderstorm tonight, so I'm looking forward for that. I'll camp out tonight in a hammock, a brand new lightweight, extra lightweight hammock that I have and all out of my brand new bushcraft style backpack, my hidden woodsman backpack. We'll go into more details into that later on. It's very peaceful right now. I found a beaver pond. It's not the river, but I can hear rapids that way across the beaver pond. Pretty strong rapids actually. So I think I'm going to circumvent the beaver pond and try and get over to the rapids. Man, there is no shortage of beaver sign around here that is for sure just uh solidifies my guess that this is actually a beaver pond working up a sweat here man i take off my prim loft it is gorgeous out hard to believe that it's supposed to thunderstorm tonight i've been walking for about 45 minutes now since i last saw you i've got to be getting close to this river i can hear it even more now ah lots of elevation i found it pretty awesome look at that pretty awesome oh look at my hair fancy i don't know i don't know if i want to set up here i don't know if the water is too loud for my microphone or what i think i might go set up a little bit of ways from it still in close proximity so i can get water and stuff but oh beauty just gorgeous i've decided i want to see more of this river i've had to strip down even more now just got my tank top on i'm going to go up here where the actual rapids were because i didn't access it i didn't come down to the river at the rapids go down to the rapids take it all in maybe have a little bit of lunch there and then hike back up into the hills away from the water a little bit so that I can not have to worry about the water drowning out my my volume as well as I want to be a little bit protected in the woods when it comes time for that thunderstorm tonight I'm excited to ride out a thunderstorm in a hammock under a tarp I haven't been out in a good thunderstorm in a long while I'm getting really close I can hear it and that's good because I'm done walking I'm exhausted I want to something and drink something i'm gonna sit down next to that river i'm not sure if i should sit here and try to talk to the camera or not i don't know if you can hear me over the water but i'm gonna have a lunch break here i'm exhausted i wasted a lot of time trying to get here not wasted i spent a lot of time trying to get here and this is absolutely insane this is probably a class five i've never seen i've only ever seen rapids like this um like up north far to Temagami so i'm glad i came over here it's absolutely amazing the river's right there i'm in this cedar grove so it's nice and cool shaded the ground is soft feels so much nicer than being in the hardwoods i'm gonna try to go down there and uh find a spot suitable spot for my hammock and tarp i'm really digging this spot shaded there's still some sunlight coming in for filming i'm not too far away from the water right there you can see the rapids uh flowing by not too loud either i think this is perfect super pumped on this my buddy malcolm sent me a Ray Mears Grans mirrors grass first small forest axe thanks a ton dude sent me this because we're working together and he's a good guy just a nice kind of guy so we're going to use this we're going to clear a spot for my tarp and hammock and make a camp it's pretty congested with downfall branches and stuff like that it's very common of an unused cedar grove so i'm going to clean it up probably going going to hang my hammock everything in the middle this is all really good wood yeah super dry cedar Thuja occidentalis is the scientific name the latin name so i'm going to set up with my back to the water as much as i would like to set up looking at the water the wind is coming this way the volume the sound is coming this way so i will set up facing that way so i don't get rained on and it's better for filming so if you guys want to know more information about this backpack i just shot a second video a backpack gear loadout video for this trip i'll link this at the end and you can check that out to get more info about the backpack itself and the gear that i brought for this specific trip i'll give you a little teaser a little teaser right off the top that's the first thing i grab you know you gotta have your priorities straight i'll just put that right there for now so i need my hammock and again i go through the hammock a little bit more uh in the other video but this is a camp king hammock made by my buddy named bruno he lives in quebec this is an awesome ultralight setup for a hammock let's go set it up let me just first and foremost say i'm not a hammocker wow this wind i'm not a hammocker i've never used this style of hammock before this has whoopee slings i did set it up yesterday just to practice i will show you my best do not go off purely what what i say, if this is something you're interested in, look into it further, check out Shug on YouTube, Shug Emery, he has a good video on it, this style of setup, the whoopee slings. So, on my two straps, my Dyneema, and my hammock itself, the hammock comes in a super lightweight sil-nylon stuff sack, which is gonna go in my pocket so I don't lose it. The ends are gathered ends, and he's got a bug net attached on there. this thing weighs, like, I don't know. Check out the website and it'll tell you specifically. I'm gonna say it weighs nothing at all. This is how I was shown how to do this. So I have my tree strap, and I wanna put it at about eye level. So I'm gonna put it there, and probably wrap it twice or close to it. And then I'm gonna do a lark's head. So I'm gonna put the running end through the tail. I'm gonna cinch it down so that it's connected on the side. It has a lot of tension there. not going to give it has no give at all so that's set up there exactly how it needs to be we'll set up on the other side okay so here's my dyneema cord this has i believe 750 pounds of strength and it is also called the whoopee sling so the whoopee sling uses a tensioning method that's similar to a chinese finger trap so here you can see this it's hard to tell here but here's two straps and it kind of goes inside itself and this fatter part here in the middle it's called the berry and that is what is allowing it to tension or not so i can pull if i pinch the top of this berry and pull, you can see i'm getting cordage and that's how it's tensioning or loosening and then now this berry is fat and it will slide easy, everything will slide easy because the berry is fat, but when you milk the berry i'm not making that up when you milk the berry you pinch one end bit and just stretch it out like you're trying to roll out like I don't know toothpaste or something, then it gets tight and then that's when it's like the Chinese finger trap and it will not move at all until you loosen it again by pinching the front of it kind of together and then sliding it took me a minute i'm not gonna lie, it took me a couple minutes, okay let's set this up so the next step is attaching your tree hugger to your Dyneema or your whoopee sling you're gonna take one of the loops, not the loop that has the bead on it the other loop and you're just going to do another lark's head just like we did with the strap itself and go through and bring all the whole whoopee sling through your loop now that's on there, that's not going to go anywhere and now i have to connect my hammock to the whoopee sling so on the gathered end of my hammock it has that Dyneema again and there's just this little clip so then that clip gets clipped onto the loop that has the bead and you're set up and now to tension it again it's the same thing so i'm loosening it here it's dropping you can see the hammock dropping right if i want to bring it back in do something it's harder because there's tension now because of the hammock hanging but then you got to milk your berry don't forget to milk your berry boys then we're all set up it's a little lopsided i'm gonna have to drop it on that side i can tell it's a little windy it's hard to do this it creates so much tension on it oh my goodness what's supposed to work here so this is an asymmetrical hammock uh you can see the bug net uh how do i explain this so there's more bottom more part to lay on on this side and then it switches over to this side meaning i'll have my head on this angle and my my feet swinging out onto this side as an on an angle as you should sleep in hammocks to get more of a flat lay that's what they tell me what they tell me okay so i think i can put this mosquito net into one of these pouches he provided so this one looks like it would tuck up into the corner so my zipper my bug zipper can come all the way it's just connected at this one spot where it can't come off completely and that's good i don't want to lose it i want to forget it at home so let's roll this up maybe maybe and put it in this mesh pocket that's all right tucked right over the way oh my god with the wind look at the wind protection on the back that I want I don't want to a-frame I want like a wall in the back and like an awning in the front so there's the first loop I'm going down to the second I've got these pre-tied toggles they used to be like an old carbon arrow shaft from Kyle my buddy Kyle made this toggle it tight I'm probably gonna have to put a toggle in the middle as well i think you can really see the usefulness of the toggles where i can get it taut i can even move this toggle down here and then slide the whole thing over but i don't want to do that so we'll slide it back rock right there i've already measured where i want my stake to go so as you can see i can only get in not even an inch to the ground this is this part i sharpened i'm going to probably slide in as far as i can like that right underneath the ground and hopefully this holds because the wind is super strong right now let's see yeah that should do fine do a taut line so i can fix it after if i need to so taut line is two on the inside in the loop and one on the outside i'm sure you guys are sick of me saying that then i can tension it i can put something like i can go over look around to find a rock and heavier rock than this put on top of that just for some extra uh measures now time for the bass ackwards part of this whole endeavor so this tarp and hammock setup is very lightweight very small it's meant to be the hammock is meant to be used with an underquilt this type of hammock is meant to be used with an underquilt for comfort for lightweightness for packability i don't have a down underquilt all i have is a synthetic one which works fine for warmth but the packability of it is ridiculous it's bigger than my sleeping bag so it made absolutely no sense to bring it on this trip I know the purists will kill me for this I'm going to use my sleeping pad inside my hammock I know it's not the ideal way to do it but this is how we're going to do it today I depending on how this goes I might invest in a down under quilt we'll see but I am a ground dweller I know that from experience I've had two or three hammocks in the past give it another shot and i like this because this even if i don't use this to sleep in this hammock this is smaller than my day use hammocks that i was using last year that i was bringing around and just setting up to hang out in so i'll be bringing this on my canoe trip and if i can get away with sleeping in this and using this for a hangout thing i want to save a lot of room and weight and space room and weight and space in my backpack but we shall see i don't have high hopes for me converting over completely into hammock camping i don't have to blow up an underquilt either you know what i've laid in this thing with the with the sleeping pad and without and it's definitely meant to be used without a sleeping pad a sleeping pad kind of ruins it so we'll see how the night's sleep is tonight i might be investing in a underquilt all is well everything's set up now i am exhausted i'm hungry and i am thirsty so i think i'm going to have a little snack and then cut up some firewood I have to build a fire pit as well I don't have to I want to build a fire pit as well clear away there's duff on the ground and yeah just relax man it's a good day it's a good day to be in the woods check out my awesome canteen carrier I got my heavy cover canteen here for water and cooking and stuff I got this canteen carrier from Malcolm he buys surplus this is unused surplus military surplus and he sells it so that fits right onto my backpack and my canteen fits right in there really nicely for food on this trip got some some good stuff first up what some broccoli can have enough trees well broccoli in my life got some fresh Ontario lamb chops I thought the good lamb was from New Zealand but we'll see the ontario lamb chops are after my last uh experience with lamb i'm ready to try some more i've got two rolls i'm gonna have one right now i've got some bacon for the morning i've got some kielbasa a wellington special pale ale to go with my immodest imperial pale ale so my immodest is 9.0 my Wellington is 4.5, two ends of the spectrum. There we gotta get these cold, these are getting to be warm, I'm gonna put them in the water I think and I've just got some snacks. Oh, here's a cool thing so I got sent a huge box of food from one of my subscribers, Stan. Thank you very much, dude uh, it's gonna go a long way this is so awesome what he did, he sent me like all of the things that I always bring on my backpacking, canoeing, and camping trips it's like chocolate peanut M&M's, oatmeal, like crazy granola bars tea some booze some baby wipes telling you he knows, he knows what's up so this beer was also from Stan, so thank you very much I'll read all about the beers and drink them later. I'll have one, one with supper and then I'll have one after supper when I'm laying in my hammock kind of relaxing by the fire. I think I'm gonna go stick these beers in the water to stay cold, those better not float away, I better get some rocks to put on top or make a little weir a beer weir a beer weir, I really cracked myself up, it's a good thing I like camping solo, we've already lost one, yeah the beer weir needs to happen like ASAP, I'm gonna make my beer weir right now, luckily there's tons of rock around here, we go nice and safe protected not going to float away here we go for the wind cheers so that pack is pretty cool it's calling it the Hidden Woodsman Dayrock 2.0 Joe Robinette version Joe Robinette edition I walked for over three hours up and down contours and around trees through swamp with that backpack on with I'm honestly guessing about 30 pounds and it is packed to the nines um it rode okay it doesn't have a it has a sternum strap it does not have a waist belt because it's such a small backpack it's not designed to do overnighters out of but you can obviously it's called the Dayrock it's made for the uh for day hikes and for camping and stuff like that but man i swear to god i could do two nights out of this the only thing that would be different is i would have to have a little bit more food i would just leave my hammock out in that space that i didn't need to bring my hammock obviously right so my backpack's full but with that space of the hammock about a Nalgene maybe um i didn't have to bring i could sleep right on the ground i could sleep on my with my pad on the ground underneath the tarp the hammock is an extra thing so if i didn't bring my hammock i could bring another day's worth of food at least maybe even more but yeah very capable pack ride's good i like the looks of it it's like a modern bushcrafty with a touch of tactical just because of the molly but like you can wear that and use that all around town with no qualms at all no qualms I wish scout was here to dig out these rocks for me weird-looking rock they can break that piece off like a three-sided fire pit very efficient it's about it that's about it right there I think nothing fancy three-sided a big rock on the back to reflect a little bit of the heat back to me just to make it a little bit more efficient i do not need warmth tonight from a fire that's for sure i had no intention of putting a rock down on the ground but i just found this one it came out super easy and it looks like it's gonna fit about perfectly yeah so i guess i will put that there why the heck not eh so i want to put a drip line here um my tarp covers it and there even is this like attachment carabiner style attachment that might trickle the water down but it's right on the cusp of the tarp so I might get some rain on this part I'm just going to make quick easy drip line this old random piece of paracord anyway I don't need it I'm just gonna tie it paracord is very water absorbent so the idea is the rain will travel down the line hit my paracord and then drip off onto the ground as opposed to coming into my hammock soaking me there's only one way I'm getting wet tonight and that's not from rain it's a pee accident sometimes I try to pee in a bottle when I'm in a hammock and it goes awry but what was the spice in life really urine is the spice of life I've been screwing around with the tensioning and laying different ways and stuff and I think I finally got it I ended up tying out the two bungees that the that the hammock has I thought they for the bug screen they may maybe but it helps to spread out the hammock a little bit more at least for me so i can see what i'm doing so now i can lay actually flat in it the way you're supposed to so i'm on my diagonal and i kind of pop it up and i feel like i can even sleep on my side and i am a side sleeper and this pad is not meant for this thing yeah it's not so bad it's better than it was again hammock noob over here but pretty damn comfortable the weather's really changing it's getting dark the winds picking up the temperatures dropping it's three o'clock thunderstorms aren't supposed to happen till tonight like midnight but I have a feeling they might come in a little bit earlier it feels like rain right now so I gotta get my firewood in order my chopping block because I don't have a saw I just have this axe so thick back in here just like tons of scrub everywhere forgot my wedding ring on oh it's getting dicey yeah like my tripod's gonna take my wedding ring off before i go camping if i know i'm going to be using an axe because this motion with my axe and my hand i don't like it it digs it digs my ring into my hand but anyways gotta keep going gotta keep working i'm going to run out of usable day welcome i don't think i want to leave this lanyard on buddy even though i know it was was going to supposed to storm it's just not cold and I'm gonna huddle under my tarp when that does happen cedar eastern white cedar Thuja occidentalis such a good smell that'll do right the clouds overhead seeing as how I have all this cedar around I think I'm gonna attempt a bow drill start my fire with a bow drill tonight so I'm gonna get started on that I've already started the process this tree was standing dead inside the other trees nice and dry see I chopped it there I have marked it there I'm leaving the piece cut long that I'm cutting because I'm chopping it with an axe and it might split and I might have to cut it down it's okay if I have to make it smaller I can't I'm not trying to smash it at all I'm trying to keep it nice and intact this side is a little more beat up but that's fine again because I can make make it shorter this top piece is thick enough to make a spindle out of this bottom piece is wide enough to make the hearth i'll have to split it down more though start using my knife now i think instead of my axe it is going to storm oh my goodness bow drill so this is way too thick for the hearth it actually split relatively straight which i'm pretty happy about so all i have to do for the hearth i don't have to make this hearth any shorter at all it does not matter how long the thing is right all i'm going to do is flatten out a spot and as i'm doing that i'm I'm making it thinner right I'm gonna take some I'm gonna take some off the sides to make it more flat where my notch is gonna go still a bit thick you want to keep it you want to keep it level too because you can if you start to go on a slant or an angle and make the board warped then your spindle is gonna pop out it's gonna keep falling over whichever way is lower and keep it flat by trimming off different areas of the board okay I'm pretty happy with how that seems it's a good uh thickness it's bowing out over here because this is um wider and it's sitting weird but it's okay because my if i have to i'll break it down no big deal but i'm going to stop there for now with that and start working on my spindle wood is awesome to work with it's super soft which makes it a good candidate for the bow drilling you can see that when i scratch it with my finger I hope so yeah now to make the spindle so super narrow wider I want to use the wide spot and I want the spindle to be at least that long when I'm finished it so maybe I'll keep it like an inch or two longer than that where I start to make my cuts you can see how I just cut right into it and cut it off that way nice and simple nice and easy so at the first amount of thunder I think that was the first bit of thunder boys and girls I'm excited so with the spindle, I want to make it thicker than my thumb is in diameter. A normal, as thick as a normal guy's thumb is, but mine are like little girly thumbs. So I'm going to make it just a bit thicker than mine. That's my gauge anyway. If you're a normal man, you can gauge it with your own thumb. Yeah, this is going to be plenty big around. And the spindle does not have to be completely perfect. it's okay if there's ridges on it what the main thing it needs to be is straight straight spindle is going to work way better so my spindle has taken rough shape this end is fatter and that means that that end is going to go down into the hearth because there's more friction on this side there's going to be less friction on the top is exactly what i want my top part's almost done i want to make it into a smooth point narrow too narrow at the point so that doesn't rub on whatever you're using as a bearing block or a handhold okay i gotta i gotta cut that down it's a bit sharp it'll dig into it but you can see it's going to spin relatively straight now my bottom of my spindle needs to be more way more blunt rounder not as sharp but round you don't want it like an egg shape at the bottom so it is an egg shape right now and you don't actually have to fix your whole spindle you just start man that thunder is coming can you guys hear it through there i hope so anyways you can just do the bottom part because the the middle of the spindle is not going to touch anything except for the string so it doesn't really matter and that is a lot more circular round see the dull point compared to the pointy point i might even take the very top and Smash it down a bit. So it doesn't dig too far into my bearing block. I'm using my Turley Gasconade knife favorite knife All right. So the spindle is done. The hearth is almost done. Now. All we have to do is Find a bow build a bow find a bearing block build a bearing block find tinder bundle and build that tinder bundle Kindling as well cross your fingers. Tell me you heard that one man That was too cool and I didn't bring my camera I went out to go get those that stuff and I got I found tinder and I found kindling I also saw frickin two flying squirrels. I've never seen a flying squirrel in my life I looked up I saw this birch bark hanging from a big birch tree, and it's super ribbony So I'm like yeah I can fluff that up to use for part of my tinder bundle And I look up to grab it and a frickin I thought it was a squirrel a red squirrel scurries up the tree I'm looking at him. He's more of a gray color, and he has this flat tail like a almost like a beaver He's like maybe that big with his tail fat oval tail. It was super cool, man I'm staring at him, and I wanted him to uh to fly right to glide. I wanted to see him glide Is that a flying squirrel? What has a fat tail? Do they have fat tails like that? Oh my goodness. What is that? Oh my goodness. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. I just saw a huge bird I think it's an eagle. I think it's an eagle guys so many animals. Oh my goodness Anyways, I don't know if it was a flying squirrel or not But then I banged on the tree where he was and another one came out of a hole and I saw two of them And they're really cool. Really really cool. There he is. It's a hawk. Okay. I'm starting to think they're turkey vultures They looked smaller than a turkey vulture, but oh my goodness. There's five of them. Yeah, they're turkey vultures 100% Oh my goodness, they're swarming something's happening I've been in a specific location for a few hours now and I haven't seen any of them I don't know if it has to do with the rain that's coming or what. That's pretty cool, though I know they're just turkey vultures. I see them all the time. That thunder's coming man. Look at the sky Okay, I got to get a bow now. I got all my other stuff. I need a bow and a Handhold tell me what that thing I saw was if you guys know do flying squirrels have flat tails like a beaver and are Like that big this one was living in a birch tree in a cavity of a birch tree when I smacked on I don't know if I said that in my excitement running over here when I smacked the birch tree another one scurried out They didn't glide though. I was trying to get them to glide and they didn't i'm gonna take this maple sapling for my bowl it's 4:30 now this rain is coming and uh i want to cook my food and stuff so i can still mess around with that bow drill thing after but i'm not going to rely on it to light my fire i'm going to light my fire now get a bed of coals so i can cook before this rain comes because i have a feeling i'll be hiding under my tarp for the rest of the night yeah here it is damn it i gotta get my stuff covered up come on and here's the rain operation for these storms these here storms tell me you hear that I know I've said it's thundering like a hundred times I'm gonna keep saying it I'm so stoked okay I needed this fire to die down actually I gotta get a bunch more firewood that's what I have to do I need more firewood okay I think the rain is to stay this time she is raining when i will get my beer before it gets too crazy i'm sure they've cooled down and there's no more sun so it's not they're not going to warm up oh yeah we're camping now these are nice and cold oh look at the glow look at the inviting glow of the fire oh yeah that is awesome looking should have been a storm chaser goodness there's lightning and thunder all around me the wind just kicked up the rains kicking up this is awesome