Insanely light bug net

Indeed extremely light, impressive. No zippers if I understand correctly, wonder how that works out over time…

The Nano has been my just-in-case bug net for years, but until last year I never had to actually use it. We usually backpack in shoulder seasons to avoid heat and bugs, but after cancelling our usual April hike due to COVID I ended up going on a solo trip in June and it was bug city – so I had to to deploy the nano.  It worked great – incredibly stretchy. You do have to put something in the corners to keep it in position – I put rocks in each corner. Lack of a zipper wasn’t a problem for me – I just pulled the rock off the corner I wanted to egress from and put it back when I climbed back in. That is probably more difficult if the corners are staked.

I should have responded to your stated use-case – I used it for sleeping. I am not sure how well it would work for a meal break. It is very stretchy and clingy. It would definitely need to be stretched out and pulled up high, but still might be too tight around a sitting person to allow for eating (I think they had to work pretty hard to set it up and take the picture on the web site with the woman sitting inside not touching the sides).

I have one. Do not let it come anywhere near any other gear that has velcro. I have only used mine once. It’s a little too wide for my Zpacks Pocket Tarp so it ends up kind of saggy, but it did the job.

These have been around a while. I use it inside my Gatewood Cape. As David said, it sags inward unless tautly staked out. Floorless. Too much trouble IMO to set up for a break.

I bought one and my scales said it weighed 6 oz ! And I’m 99% sure my scales are accurate.

@jimmyjam – are you sure you have the Nano single? maybe you have the double version? The single weighs 98 grams on my scale – which might be off, but not by that much.

I use it basically exactly how you describe–as something to pull out during a break for a quick, sanity-preserving respite when mosquito pressure is high.

Most frequently, I would just drape it over myself, usually lightly anchoring the corners with rocks or stakes. It works quite well for that. In this case, your “contact points” with the net (usually head, shoulders, and elbows) need to be clothed in material mosquitoes can’t bit through. Setup time is on the order of 30 seconds.

I found that actually pitching it took too much time and was too much hassle, as others have suggested.

I have used it inside of a Hexamid solo. It’s pretty fiddly to get right, but it works. I prefer just using an UL bivy underneath the Hexamid to pitching something like this (even if I have this along).

+1 to @sbhikes regarding velcro. Velcro will devour one of these.

I have a single I got to use with a hammock in buggy situations but have not tried it yet since I haven’t needed it . The single is light. there is no floor though the photo appears to show a floor.It ought to be easy to get the pitch tight using the ridgeline and there’s enough netting to cover the head and foot with the underquilt protected the areas the net might not but that’s so far just a concept in that empty space between my ears.

Anyone else try one with a hammock?

Yeah mine doesn’t weigh 98 grams because velcro touched it and I had to sew a little patch on it.

There is no floor. It comes with an elastic drawstring which I imagine is to secure it to your bed if you use it as a travel net. I took that out. I also took off the overhead elastic. I can hook it directly into the loop at the top of my pocket tarp without any line.

I set it up in my yard to see how I could do it without the tarp. You can see it’s wider than a Gossamer Gear polycryo sheet cut to fit inside my pocket tarp.

Diane, does it have guyouts along the bottom or did you sew those on? Hard to tell from the manufacturer or even REI photos.

I think I’m probably deciding it’s one more thing I don’t need. It’s always nice to dream of camping without mosquitoes or black flies!

I mostly avoid the worst bugs

I use a 36 inch circle of netting and put it over the top of my head/face.  Wearing a stocking cap.  The netting pretty much doesn’t touch me, maybe a few spots, but the stocking cap acts as a spacer.  That keeps bugs from biting me.

A trade off towards light weight and simplicity

If I lived in Alaska or the southeast U.S. I’d probably opt for something better

I also have a Peter’s headnet that he gave me at a GGG, thanks

That works pretty good too.  Better for camping.  Not quite as good for sleeping.