The Hang Window Planner

Know before you leave home which pairs of trees your own hammock, straps and reach can hang between at 30 degrees: your ridgeline, the strap height any pair wants, your two ceilings, the window in paces, and a check of every pair

ApexRest's hang calculators each answer one question from one starting point. Comfort Angle gives a strap height for trees you already have, Tree Spacing gives a distance for a reach you already know, and Hang & Sag checks a hang you already built. None of them tells you the thing you want to know at the trailhead: which pairs of trees will my kit hang between? So the first night at a new site is often spent tying, testing and re-tying, and at a pair just too far apart the easy fix is to tie lower and hang flatter, which puts more than your weight on each strap. The Hang Window Planner answers it once, at home. You sit in the middle of the span, so at 30 degrees the strap goes about 0.29 ft up for every foot between the trees; two ceilings then set the farthest pair: how high you can reach, and how far your straps go after one wrap round the trunk. In its worked example, an 11 ft hammock on a 9.13 ft ridgeline, a 6 ft reach and 10 ft straps on 12 in trunks hang between trees 10.87 to 15.58 ft apart, about 4.4 to 6.2 paces. The straps would reach 20.99 ft; the reach stops first, so longer straps would buy that kit nothing. A tree pair log then checks every candidate against Leave No Trace's tree rules: trunks at least 6 inches, nothing dead overhead, not over water or a drop, and hammocks allowed. It measures lengths and picks trees; it never rates straps, connectors or loads, and the maker's rated capacity and instructions stay the authority. The kit and trees are examples, every figure is computed by the site's own calculators (fixed while this plan was written), and rules of thumb are named as such. Included: seven steps, four printable working pages, a strap height table, a quickstart, and a personalised sheet worked from the numbers you enter on the calculators.

Look inside

Two full pages from the plan, exactly as printed. Click either to read it at full size before you decide.

What is in it

• Step 1: your ridgeline at the deep, standard and flat lay styles, cut once and marked
• Step 2: the strap height any pair of trees wants at 30 degrees, from the middle-seat geometry, and the suspension each side
• Step 3: your reach ceiling, the farthest pair you can hang at 30 degrees, and what the flatter edge costs
• Step 4: your strap ceiling after one wrap round the trunk, by trunk size, and which ceiling binds first
• Step 5: your hang window in feet and in paces, with the near edge set by your ridgeline and shortest suspension
• Step 6: checking each pair: trunk size, dead branches overhead, water and drops, and the land manager's rules (Leave No Trace quoted)
• Step 7: measuring the hang you built from two tape measurements, and a low, slow first sit
• Four working pages: a kit card, a hang window card, a tree pair log and a trip card
• A strap height table for 11 to 18 ft trees at three seat heights, a paces-to-feet table, and a quickstart that closes the score loop
• A personalised sheet: your ridgeline, the strap height for your trees, your reach ceiling and the angle of the hang you built

The planner picks up where the free hang calculators leave off. The Comfort Angle calculator gives a strap height for trees you already have, the Tree Spacing calculator a distance for a reach you already know, and the Hang & Sag calculator checks a hang you already built. The planner puts them together with your ridgeline, your straps and one wrap round the trunk, so you know before you leave home which pairs of trees your kit can hang between at 30 degrees, in feet and in paces, and then checks every pair against Leave No Trace’s tree rules before you trust it. It measures lengths and picks trees; it never rates straps or connectors, and the maker’s rated capacity and instructions stay the authority. Every figure in it is an example for you to replace.