Big-wall hammocks?

Anyone do this? Instead of hauling a ledge and all its assorted gear has anyone just taken a hammock and sleeping bag up and called that good? A friend and I are looking at our first wall and we're trying to go as light as possible.

Yerr Gunna Die!

In all seriousness, there are several routes that have plenty of ledges such that no portaledge is needed. Nose, WFLT, South Farce, etc. If you are early in your wall career, pick the route that fits your.

With creativity you can link between moderately distant ledges by staying a couple nights at a ledge, and fixing a few pitches ahead before blasting to the next ledge.

Hammocks are really uncomfortable after even a short amount of time. They compress your shoulders together and your hip gets ground into the cliff all night. Not too fun. People obviously used them back in the day, but there were no other alternatives and those dudes were hard!

Dude,

Used a hammock on the Zodiac back in the early 80's. I can't even begin to describe how bad it sucked! I recall having a custom "wider" spreader bar and my shoulders still got crushed. Any money you spend on a ledge and the extra weight are well worth it for good rest and comfort.

Stu

I prefer to take something a little more comfortable:

If your going old school then you should probably climb in swami belts while your at it.

so there are hammocks that don't crush your soul sleeping in them. I have a hennesey hammock, the thing rules for camping. You kind of sleep on a diagonal so it stays expanded, hard to explain but it is comfy. Setting it up on a wall....yeah my guess is that would be close to impossible. If you do go the route of the hammock, realize that you NEED something padded under you if its cold enough to need a bag. you will compress all of the insulation under you and you will literally freeze your ass off.

I found this about a year ago. Haven't really researched it at all, but I'm sure someone has. Seems to offer a little bit more comfort from the looks of it though.

mosquitohammock.com/bathamm…

Will

Aha hahaha i love that pic. In all honesty dude, before the advent or idea of portal edges occurred. Hammocks were the only real option on routes/pitches that didn't have natural ledges. And dude, that shit sucked, so I've heard, too young to know myself. But if thats all you got, party on wayne!

Don't do it, Austin. I'm old school and I've slept in both. Actually, that's a lie. I've slept on ledges. In hammocks, I've watched the moon inch endlessly across the sky, all night long, while my hips and shoulders screamed. I couldn't wait for light just to end the simmering ache.

I have a Pika hammock with a spreader bar to make it more comfortable. It doesn't even compare, in comfort, to a portaledge or just sleeping on a natural ledge. But, people climbed walls for years without portaledges so it doesn't mean you can't do it now.

Found this on the other climbing forum rockclimbing.com/cgi-bin/fo…;forum_view=recent_posts;

And this too hammockforums.net/forum/sho…

But most of the pics are pretty old, so not sure if it's considered safe nowadays for climbers to use it though.

Besides the squeeze factor on your body and compressing all your insulation and having numb shoulder,knee, hip on one side its also considerably more dificult to suspend a hammock. Finding two gear placements 10 or move feet apart and level doesnt always work out and you end up sleeping in a U on sketch pro

Muzaffer wrote: Really, this is not funny :)

Now this sucks when losing to your partners on "rock, paper,
scissors" for a spot in the portaledge mountain.ru/article/article…

And how about this cool spot in the hammock? flickr.com/photos/jedparkes…

This photo took in 1990's.You know, climbing technology was so poor and lots of climber had to use equipment with own abilty. You are right Bang .This is not so reliable for now but only similar systems were possible for 1990's.