“I’ve seen a look in dogs’ eyes, a quickly vanishing look of amazed contempt, and I am convinced that basically dogs think humans are nuts” (John Steinbeck)
Camping with a dog in the jungle is new territory for me and I thought it would be interesting to document the process. There are number of potential problems: wild animals are all around so the dog needs to be on a leash and may spend the whole night barking manically and also the rain and bugs can make your canine friend miserable.
In a good camp spot with fair weather, shelter for the dog is not an issue – he can simply sleep beneath your hammock – but, as anyone who has spent time in the jungle will know – when it rains it pours and the ground beneath your hammock can quickly transform into a large puddle, possibly riddled with leeches that will turn your dogs’ paws into a bloody mess.
Sometime ago I saw the idea of a double decker hammock – this has the advantage that two people share the same tarp (thereby saving weight) and rig their two hammocks one beneath the other; with both attached to the same trees. This gave me the idea of making a hammock for the dog and I dusted off the sewing machine and got to work, the video shows the first prototype:
This concept of a double decker hammock could also be used if you have a young child you want to take in camping and don’t feel confident with them sleeping too far away from you.
The other thought in my mind was that this process – of gradually getting the dog accustomed to jungle camping and taking it step-by-step – is also a good approach for a newbie to the jungle to take. Rather than starting off your jungle experience by signing up for a hard-core, two week expedition deep into the heart of the jungle, it is a far better idea to start off with a single nights camping (maybe not far from your car) so that you can get used to your equipment and find out what works and what doesn’t.
“It always rains on tents. Rainstorms will travel thousands of miles, against prevailing winds for the opportunity to rain on a tent” (Dave Barry)
After my last trip to Taman Negara, I resolved to make some sort of water catcher attachment for my tarp so that I could collect rainwater and save myself the hassle of filtering water from the rivers.
As it usually rains in the jungle in the late afternoon, this is the time when you have already set up camp and changed into your dry clothes. As such, should a downpour begin, you probably won’t be inclined to go out from beneath the shelter of your tarp to collect water…it’s much nicer to lie back in your hammock and listen to the rain bouncing off your tarp instead.
The system I came up with is nothing new in concept but it has the advantage of being less bulky than the plastic funnel type attachments (usually an upturned plastic bottle that is cut in half), it is ultra lightweight, simplicity itself to make and costs virtually nothing. Also, as it doesn’t attach directly to the tarp there is less danger of damaging your tarp with the added weight of the water.
“Oh a storm is threat’ning, my very life today, if I don’t get some shelter, Oh yeah, I’m gonna fade away” (Gimme Shelter,Rolling Stones)
As any survival instructor will tell you, having the right state of mind in an emergency situation is critical to your chances of survival. But what determines someone’s state of mind in a survival situation and why do some people do better than others?
I think there are a number of factors at play – some people are simply mentally tougher than others; someone who has lived in the outdoors most of their life is less likely to be fazed by an outdoor survival situation than someone from the city; some people crave company, others are happy with solitude. There are also ways of encouraging positive thinking – setting realistic goals, accepting that not everything will go right (but patting yourself on the back when it does) will all help you to keep calm and positive.
However, a few years ago I read a study (and unfortunately I can’t remember the details) but the essence of it was that if soldiers where placed in a high stress situation (i.e. on the front line where they are being shot at) for over 8 months without a break they would start to mentally fall apart. What was interesting about the results was that this applied to all soldiers – no-one could handle that sort of on going stress without a break, no matter how tough their metal attitude was or how well they’d been trained.
In a survival situation, or if you’ve got lost in the jungle, things have, by definition, already started to go wrong. If more things start to go wrong – if your fire won’t catch, you get a soaking from the rain, the bugs bite you, you can’t find clean water, there’s no food – the accumulation of ‘things going wrong’ is going to stress out even the calmest individual and the problem with being stressed is that you’re less likely to make good decisions at the very moment when it is most necessary to be able to do so.
How does all this relate to a PSK shelter kit? You could argue that a shelter kit in the jungle is not a survival necessity – it’s warm enough that hypothermia isn’t a problem and you could always fashion a debris shelter or palm thatch roof.
However, this argument neglects to take into account a couple of factors: 1) building a natural shelter requires time, energy and for resources to be close at hand and 2) I imagine that in most emergency situations the first night at least would be unexpected and there may not be time to set up a shelter.
But, most importantly, having a shelter system with you that will give you a good night’s sleep is going to give a massive boost to your mental state in an emergency situation. Imagine you’ve got lost in the jungle and as the daylight fades you realise you’re going to spend an unplanned night there – instead of rushing around trying to put together a shelter you simply pull out a PSK hammock and rig up a tarp from your emergency blanket. After a reasonable night’s sleep you wake the next day with a clearer head and a better chance of making the right choices about what to do next.
In the video I show a few emergency blankets (which at the price and weight are something very well worth carrying) and also the EDC hammock which I bought from UKHammocks. The EDC hammock isn’t as comfortable as a full sized hammock (no big surprise there) but you can sleep in it (as long as you are under 85 kg). It also has the benefit of complementing your main kit as it can be used as cargo net, chair, and under quilt/mozzi blocker as well.
For anyone interested in buying one or reading more details here is the link to UK Hammocks.
If you can set up a camp like this then, should you get lost in the jungle, you are also more likely to stay put (rather then rushing to get out before nightfall and possibly getting even more lost) and the whole prospect of an unplanned night in the forest is far less alarming.
“Women and cats do as they please; men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea” (Robert Heinlein)
Ultralight purists might well baulk at the idea of even bothering with a camp chair – seeing it as unnecessary extra weight. Why not, they might ask, simply sit in the hammock if you want to sit back and relax for a while?
This was, for a time, my own view as well but I discovered a few problems with this approach. Firstly my hammock is a seductive seat – once I get in the temptation to lie back and snooze becomes almost irresistible and the camp chores I’m meant to be doing get neglected. The other problem I found is that I often wanted to sit somewhere other than where my hammock was strung up – for example, by the fire when cooking or, if camping with friends, over at their camp area.
Simply sitting on the ground also has problems: in the jungle, insects will take exception to your backside on top of their home and leaning against a tree for back support is generally not a good idea as ants and the like will take offence at your presence and either crawl all over you or bite you, or both.
This led to a search for an ultralight camp chair and I have experimented quite a bit with different designs of chair – from sack chairs, to hammock chairs and finally to the hyperlight version that you can see in the video. It cost almost nothing to make and took me about an hour to sew everything together – it’s light (170 grams), very compact, easy to move around and gives that back support that I find I crave at the end of a hard day’s trekking.
Ultralight camping, inevitably, involves some degree of compromise – if nothing else you will lose durability with most ultralight items relative to more sturdy (and heavier) alternatives. However, I don’t believe ultralight camping should require you to compromise too much on comfort: if I don’t take in a camp chair (to save weight) but end up with an aching back and a poor nights sleep, then it’s been a false economy. I feel the same way about shelter systems – they should allow you to get a good nights sleep as, if you are trekking hard, then you need to let your body recover so that you are ready for the next day. If you spend a bad night and wake up tired and irritable the next day then you are more likely to make poor decisions (and the jungle is always quick to punish poor decisions!) and certainly won’t enjoy the day as much.
The small square tarp that I use as a seat/groundsheet has another use as well: in the jungle it is easy to lose small items on the jungle floor and the groundsheet is useful in providing an area where things can be placed and not forgotten about.
Which chair of the ones shown is best? It depends on what you are doing – if you are setting up a semi permanent camp site (or one that you will return to often) then it might be worth setting op the tripod sack-chair system as you can leave the poles there for you to use the next time you visit. If you are travelling in a group then the hyperlite (ground sheet style) system has the benefit of no set up time and allows you to easily move it around. If you’re camping not far from your car…well then you’re spoilt for choice as weight/bulk is not an issue and you can simply use the standard aluminium framed chairs.
But is the hyperlight camp chair set up I designed as comfortable as the standard aluminium frame camp chairs? In a word ‘no’… but it’s good enough. This to me is the key with ultralight camping: it’s a bit like the 80:20 rule in that you can get 80% of the comfort with an item that is only 20% of the weight. In the case of the hyperlight camp chair (which weighs just 170 grams) I can get, say, 80% of the comfort that I’d get from an standard aluminium framed chair (which weighs about 3kg).
So ‘yes’ ultralight camping does involve some compromise but an item like the hyperlight camp chair (which is just 5% of the weight of a standard camp chair) allows me to enjoy sitting around the camp fire at night without significantly increasing my load-out weight.
“The burden which is well bourne becomes light” (Ovid)
In the quest to lighten the load I have to carry into the jungle I continue to try out new products and ideas and, in this video, you can see my new hyperlight hammock system in action. I have had it for around 6 months now but wanted to give it a few test runs in the field before reviewing it. One thing I forgot to explain in the video is that you will notice orange tags and dayglow drawstring on the bags I am using: the reason for this is simply that the green parachute material I used to make the bags is perfectly camouflaged in the jungle and this makes it very easy to accidentally leave the bags behind (something I have done in the past!).
For those of you with fast internet speeds, this video can be watched in 1080 HD.
Ultralight camping makes all kinds of sense, however there are some items that I carry where I am not using the lightest option for one reason or another:
Rucksack: these are going to get quite a lot of punishment as you push through the jungle and snag on rattans and the like. As such the material needs to be reasonably tough (and therefore heavier).
Water bottles: I like the Sigg bottles as they are unlikely to let you down and can take a fair amount of abuse. Water bladders can split and be a problem. My preference is to have two 1 litre Sigg bottles in outer pockets and a back up Platypus 1 litre collapsible bottle (usually unfilled) in my main compartment.
Torch: I like a lot of lumens and I like a torch that uses standard (and thus easy to find) batteries. My preference at the moment is for the Fenix LD 12. It’s bigger and heavier than the Fenix E01 that I used to use….but you are much less likely to step on a snake if you can really light up the jungle.
Bedding/spare clothes: If you really want to go ultralight you could forgo these items altogether and simply sleep in the hammock in your underwear. However, is it worth being cold and getting bitten by mozzis though the night for the sake of 1.5kg of extra weight? I think not; the discomfort of carrying an extra kilo and half is more than made up for by a good nights sleep.
However, for items where the ultralightweight option performs just as well….then I go as ultralight as possible. No question. Why carry heavy ropes for the hammock when you could use amsteel or dynaglide instead? Why carry a heavy tarp when a light one is just as waterproof? Saying that, these lightweight options are often more expensive than the heavier versions and I understand and sympathise with people who carry heavy items simply because they can’t afford the lighter version (think Titanium!).
Ultralightweight camping is, at heart, a matter of careful planning. If you walk along a trail by a river with 4 litres of water in your pack (which equals 4kg) then you are basically carrying a weight of water you didn’t need to carry and the fact that you saved a few grams of weight with your titanium cookset is neither here nor there. Or, if you are walking along a well used trail then you probably won’t need a super heavy 14 inch parang as there won’t be much heavy chopping to do and you could carry a smaller and lighter parang instead.
Also, if you use ultralightweight equipment you will need to plan and find ways of protecting that gear from the jungle (particularly in the case of ultralightweight tarps). The better you plan, the lighter you can go.
As Keong points out in the video, ultralight camping suits those who are ultralight themselves. I am skinny and don’t weight much and so can get away with using ropes rated to 90kg and find hammocks like the Grand Trunk are ample enough in width. However, I read a review of the same hammock where the writer mentioned that he would have preferred the Grand Trunk to have been a bit wider.
And, as Keong also points out, the other factor that will determine how light you can go is your personal comfort zone….if you’re happy to sleep on the jungle floor then you don’t even need to take in a hammock in at all!
Last week I was camping in Taman Negara National Park and playing around with some new hammock suspension ideas. The aim was to get a system that was 1) quick and convenient to use, 2) as lightweight as possible and 3) that incorporated tree protectors.
I had recently bought ‘The Ultimate Hang’ by Derek Hansen (a great book and one every ‘hanger’ should own) and was intrigued by the whoopie slings that seem so popular in the states. So, I made some up (and should you wish to do the same there is an excellent Youtube video by Mat from UKHammocks showing exactly how to make them) and took them along…
I did not get along with whoopie slings and have since removed them. To me whoopie slings are a neat, but over complicated solution: they are both bulkier and heavier than using a single line with a knot and, if the trees are too close together, they can create problems as you are restricted by how short you can make them.
However, the exercise was not a complete waste of time as it introduced me to toggles and the use of a Marlin Spike Hitch (basically a slip knot) which work well with the tree protectors.
In this video I cover some of the main ways to hang a hammock (but by no means all of them) and give some tips that might help you reduce the weight and bulk of the ropes you carry along. Sometimes this can be as simple as doubling up the use of a piece of equipment – thus my rope bag doubles up as a storage bag that I can hang from the ridgeline, my rucksack rain cover doubles up as a large, waterproof cargo pocket for kit kept outside the rain protection of the tarp.
I think the waterproof cover for the rucksack is a good item to carry along. Why? Because a sodden rucksack weighs a lot more than a dry one. My Karrimor Sabre weights in at about 1.7kg dry but, when dripping wet, the weight increases to 2.7kg! The cover also increases visibility (making it easy to find your camp) and can be used as a mat to sit on.
My advice for hammock suspension systems is to ‘keep it simple’ and ‘keep it light’ – you only need to learn a couple of hitches and you’re done and, frankly speaking, it is easier to learn the knots than learning how to make things like whoopie slings. Similarly rap rings (or descender rings) are an unnecessary extra weight to carry and can slip if the set up isn’t exactly right.
The other item I was testing out was the ‘soft shackle’ and, in the video below, I show you how to make one. I like soft shackles as they are both light and compact but, of course, they don’t have the durability of the metal shackle.
One last thing to mention when setting up a hammock in the jungle is make sure that you don’t leave any sharp points on the undergrowth that you clear below the hammock as, should something go wrong, you don’t want to get speared by sharp, pointed sticks beneath you! I simply bash any pointed ends with the side of my parang to blunt them off. Also, don’t forget to look up to check there aren’t any dead branches (widow makers) above you.
On the last night in Taman Negara I was in my hammock which was strung alongside a wide jungle river, with a 15 foot drop on one side where the embankment sloped down to the water. It had been a long day and, as night fell I retreated happily to my hammock. A thunderstorm began and the sky lit up every 30 secs or so, as if there were some massive flourscent tube high up in the clouds that was on the blink, and I could make out the details of the river below me…. it felt like I was floating above the jungle, completely warm, completely dry and utterly comfortable…
“Look for the bare necessities, the simple bare necessities, forget about your troubles and your strife” – (Baloo)
Last week I went in to the jungle for a night’s camping and, as darkness fell, realised that I had forgotten to bring in any food (although I had, curiously, remembered the beer) – it was annoying and I went to bed hungry, but not really that big a deal.
Forgetting or losing an item of kit can send some people into a spin, but the truth is that for most 2-3 day trips into the jungle you could easily survive without any of your kit (apart from your parang and compass) – you could live without food (although it’s not pleasant to do), water is easily found, there’s little danger of dying from hypothermia (although nights would be chilly) etc.
I remember Les Stound making the distinction between ‘enduring’ and ‘surviving’ – the former means simply sitting out the discomfort in hungry misery, the latter means taking control of the situation and satisfying the basic needs of shelter, fire, food and water (and beer!).
So, when packing for a short trip, it’s good to remind yourself that all the stuff your are taking is really there just to make life easier and more comfortable (rather than being absolutely necessary) but that the more of these items you take the less comfortable the trekking is going to be as the load on your back gets heavier.
I’ve had a few requests from people (mainly here in Malaysia) who want to start camping out in jungle but don’t know where to start in terms of kit to take in – this video shows what I use and hopefully will be of some help.
My advice for those starting out is not to overstretch yourself at the beginning and to test your equipment first. Once you’ve got your kit sorted, take it for a walk – it doesn’t matter where, round the park a few times will do (but try some hills too!) – just to check whether the weight is bearable and the rucksack comfortable. Then do a test run into the jungle – there’s no need to go far (you could go a hundred yards off the road and into the jungle) and try setting up camp and sorting out food, water, fire etc. For those in Malaysia you could visit Raman (the Orang Asli who lives at Gombak) and camp at his kebun for a night. By checking your equipment first you will quickly discover any problems and become familiar with its use.
This is particularly important when it comes to hammocks – they are, by far, the best shelter system to use in the jungle but they do take a little bit of skill to set up in a way that maximizes the comfort they can offer. Keeping your body at the right temperature in a hammock can also be difficult at first as the evenings are often warm and humid and the early mornings can be surprisingly chilly.
And then there’s the rain – your hammock shelter system must be 100% waterproof – no water creeping down the ropes, no splashback from the ground, no rain getting in from the sides – and the only way to be sure is to try it first in heavy rain. You could do this anywhere – in your back garden would do – but test it (and adjust it) before you go on an extended expedition into the jungle.
The tortoise that I relocated ambled off into the jungle, seemingly happy with the new environment that didn’t have the concrete storm drains that tank-trapped him where I found him (or, for the time being at least, the looming threat of development).
About 30 miles from where I live is the Malaysian Elephant Sanctuary that relocates elephants displaced by the seemingly unstoppable spread of oil palm plantations. It is a commendable effort to help these animals but, to some extent, it has the side-effect of making us feel better about a situation we should really be feeling extremely bad about. Elephants need space, it’s as simple as that, and relocating them (into unfamiliar areas where other elephants have already staked out their territory) is a sub-optimal solution.
It reminds me of the line in Apocalypse Now:
“It’s a way we had of living with ourselves: we cut them in half with a machine gun and then give them a band aid. It was a lie. And the more I saw them, the more I hated lies”.
The politics of the rain forest here in Malaysia are both complex (in terms of finding workable solutions) and very simple (in terms of projecting the outcome) – what is needed is a system of fully protected, federal, nationals parks linked together with corridors of forest that the animals can use to go between them. Unfortunately the state (rather than federal) system of forest control in Malaysia makes this difficult to achieve and the growing consumer demands of a growing, urbanized population mean that there is an ever increasing demand to clear the forest for our own ends – be it farms or oil palm plantations or housing developments.
Here in Malaysia I see some cause for hope in the changing attitudes of the younger generation towards the environment – but will the situation change fast enough to save the forests? I don’t know, but one thing is for sure, future generations will curse us for the mess that they will inherit: the result of selfish exploitation of the worlds resources that has gone on over the last 50 years and the unchecked population explosion.
As a future Churchillian might say of our generation: “Never in the field of human conduct have so many been left with so little, and with so much blame lying with so few”
“I’m not overweight, I’m just 9 inches too short” (Shelly Winters)
I bought some new gear last year that I’ve been testing out and this included a new hammock/tarp/net system which has reduced my shelter-system weight from 1800 grams (my old ENO system) to 980 grams… a significant weight saving.
Does this mean the ENO system I originally bought was a bad choice? Is lightweight always the best option?
For me the answer to both these questions is ‘not necessarily’. Most lightweight camping products are less sturdy than their heavier and more rugged counterparts and, as a result, need to be treated a little more carefully in the field. As is often the case, choice of camping gear involves an element of compromise and the best choice will depend on the trip you have in mind and your own personal preferences.
For example, if I’m going for a one night trip into the jungle I can afford to carry heavier equipment if I so wish. Why? Simply because I don’t need to carry so much food with me and therefore my pack is lighter anyway. However, if you are going into the jungle for a week then it’s a different story and you will need to take in lots of food and will therefore want to reduce the weight of your equipment as much as possible.
I was listening to a talk Lofty Wiseman (SAS Survival Guide) gave where he explained that one of the factors that sparked his interest in survival and living from the land came during his army days (here in Malaysia, if I remember correctly): because they had to carry so much weight of equipment (guns, radio, ammo etc), the only way to reduce the pack weight was to cut back on the amount of food they took in…and therefore they either had to find food from the jungle, or go hungry.
Despite the fact that lightweight equipment may not be so durable as more sturdily built options, I would still go the lightweight way myself and just accept that I need to be a little more careful with the equipment.
The other point about ultralight gear is that you will save yourself a fortune if you make your own and, for this, you will need a sewing machine. Once you’ve got a sewing machine all sorts of products can be made to your own specifications: tarps, hammocks, sleeping bags, pillows. Not only that but you can adapt existing equipment: sew tabs onto hammocks to hang things from, extend tarps to protect the ropes from the rain etc and, of course, repair any rips.
The under-quilt for a hammock is a great idea that was developed for hammock use in colder climates but can be used here in a cut-down form. It is astonishing how much difference this small quilt can make and, if you haven’t tried one before then you are in for a pleasant surprise when you do.
Some people use foam mats instead of under-quilts but this is not such a good option as these can act as sweat traps whereas the quilt system is more breathable.
“It ain’t got that thing, if it ain’t got that swing”
In the last article I was talking about some of the (many) disadvantages of using a tent and the preference of most people who camp in the jungle to use a hammock instead – there are many good reasons for this and once you try using a hammock you are unlikely to want to use anything else (in the tropics at least).
Another method of camping that is popular here in Malaysia is to use a shared tarp and sleep (as a group) on a groundsheet beneath. I tried this once (with twelve of us packed like sardines on the groundsheet) and that was quite enough for me! I like a bit of personal space when I sleep and if one of your companions in a shared shelter snores…well, it can get very aggravating…and then there are the leeches too…
If you are new to hammocks this video sums up some of the main points to bear in mind if you are going to use one – from the knots to use, to the types you can buy. If you are on a budget, you can adapt a standard mozzi net to fit a hammock and take a standard hammock and open it up to make a wider, more comfortable one – both of these require finding someone who is handy with a sewing machine but it can save you a lot of money.
I also cover the problems with using a leather belt in the jungle and a suggestion regarding disposable lighters for use during prolonged and heavy rain.
The hammock/tarp/mozzi net combination really comes into its own in the jungle – it keeps you dry, off the ground, protected from biting bugs and, when set up right, comfortable enough to ensure a very good night’s sleep!
For those who simply cannot get into the swing of using a hammock, the video also shows how to set up a lightweight camp bed (see photo below).
The first survival shelter I made was a lean-to with a roof of palm fronds, beneath which I slept on the jungle floor. I was very grateful it didn’t rain that night as the roof had large gaps between the leaves and wouldn’t have kept out much more than the briefest of drizzles.
In comparison, and as anyone who has been in the jungle will tell you, getting into a hammock at night (with a fully waterproof roof and a mozzi net to protect you) is a wonderful feeling and makes any problems you have to face the next day seem more manageable.
Of course we can make a shelter and a raised platform with natural materials – rattans and vines for cordage, bamboo for a bed and palm leaves woven to form a roof – but it takes time and luck. Tribesmen on hunting trips tend to make a communal shelter – and, with many (skilled) hands, the work is quick to complete. Also, I imagine, they often know in advance where they are likely to camp and choose places where they know the needed materials are plentiful and near at hand.
As a lone traveller, lost in the jungle, making a shelter from purely natural materials is going to take quite a bit of time and you will probably need to search around for the materials you need (and may not find ones that are really suitable).
In the video below I show you how to make an emergency shelter system that is 100% waterproof, relatively comfortable, cheap and fits into a small belt pouch.
Even the system in the video takes a bit of time to put together. If you haven’t done it before I would allow 1-2 hours to be on the safe side, and it is always a good idea to stop and make camp early in the afternoon (not later than 3pm) so that you have plenty of time to get comfortable before it gets dark.
In the heat and humidity of the jungle it is a good general rule to reduce your expectations of how much and how quickly you can do things. If you think a journey is going to take 2 days, give yourself 3 days instead and then you can slow down and avoid getting tired and hassled by the inevitable unforeseen problems that the jungle throws at you.
Camping with a dog in the jungle is new territory for me and I thought it would be interesting to document the process. There are number of potential problems: wild animals are all around so the dog needs to be on a leash and may spend the whole night barking manically and also the rain and bugs can make your canine friend miserable.
