MOTOCAMP: Hammock camping in a severe thunderstorm - Kammok Mantis

Welcome to my second night camping at Arcadia Lake after my Red Dirt Rykers meet-up ride. I knew we had some thunderstorms in the forecast, but I didn't expect this chaos! Skip to the end of this description for clickable time indexes.

I returned from a quick dinner in the Midwest City area and stopped by Wal-Mart for supplies and bottled water. When I came outside, the storm clouds were already rolling in and creating a spectacular sunset... bright red and ominous grey combined. I tried to snag a quick photo or video, but the sun went down quickly, and I missed that opportunity.

This storm was the same system that set off EF-3 tornadoes in the Dallas, Texas, area. I had no idea I was in for such a ride... otherwise, I would have checked into a hotel just for safety's sake! The evening thunderstorm started in a typical fashion, but it quickly turned into a monster. I returned to the campsite and promptly buttoned things down in preparation for the rain, but my gear wasn't quite ready for this abuse.

The Kammok tarp failed on several counts, the most significant of which were the quick-adjusters/tensioners on the ridgeline and corner guylines. The adjusters don't provide enough tension on the lines to prevent slipping in high winds, and they lost almost all "bite" when the lines were rain-soaked. The aluminum V-stakes fared well enough, but the wind yanked 4 of them out of the ground and allowed the tarp to shift away from the foot end of the hammock. That's when everything went sideways... let the deluge begin!

I had multiple camera angles of this saga and chopped up the video into different sections for different viewer preferences this time. The first 11 minutes of the video contains the bulk of the incident. The remaining 24 minutes contains extended footage, and a long ending of rain and storm sounds. Cheers! 😉👍

Time indexes:
0:00 : Chasing a bright red sunset behind the storm clouds... no luck, it set too fast
1:55 : Arriving back at the campsite in the dark
2:49 : Let the storms begin... slowly at first, and then all Hell breaks loose
3:14 : Wind begins at 30-40 mph and quickly increases to 50+ mph with the storm
3:53 : 40+ mph steady winds now, heading for 60+ mph
4:25 : View from inside the hammock hanging at about 45 degrees during the wind gusts!
6:13 : Tarp failure, the wind has shifted it and all of the water is pouring into the hammock
6:45 : Exterior view of same timeline, showing my early attempts at damage control
8:03 : Round two of the storm begins with more high winds and small hail
8:13 : Interior view after damage control, failure analysis and synopsis
11:12 : Exterior view of the remediation efforts, lots of wind, rain, and lightning
18:35 : ASMR consisting of wind, rain, and thunder throughout the remainder of the video.
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QM
quasimotard@gmail.com
#kammok #motocamping #thunderstorm

Kammok Mantis hammock
hammock thunderstorm
hammock camping in the rain