Kammock Mantis and Mantis UL Hammock Review

Excellent review Andrew. I’m in much the same place as being “hammock curious”. I bought the Hennessy setup and have experimented with it on summer trips.
It is well designed but indeed requires a lot of fiddling and rope craft to set up. And the tarp provides minimal shelter. I don’t have much confidence that it would keep me dry. After reading this review I may sell it on eBay and give the Kammock a try.

Drew, you might consider just getting a different tarp for your Hennessy rather than swapping entire systems. Their asym tarp will keep you dry 9if you have your face buried in the tarp), but you won’t have the benefit of having a dry space to store your gear, cook, lounge, etc. The Hennessy hex tarps do a much better job of that.

If your Hennessy has the old cord and strap (instead of the whoopie slings now offered), skip the Hennessy method and just use a Becket hitch. Spending ten minutes learning a Becket hitch will save you ten minutes every time you set up.

Thanks Drew! A lot of people REALLY like that Hennessy product. Walter’s point about just swapping out tarps is also valid. In fact, you could just swap tarps FIRST (and invest in a nice one), then if you want to swap out the hammock system later you can (and keep using your nice tarp).

Thank you for the writeup Andrew!

I use a hammock almost exclusively now. I also have my best sleep in them. I smiled when you talked about falling asleep for 5 hrs with a book on your face until the 2 am call of nature. I have had similar experiences :) I do have an a la carte system as you called it with an asymmetric hammock. The asymmetric aspect made a big difference for me and is one I would hate to go without now. There are definitely ways to ease into hammock camping without breaking the budget. If you are just trying it out, this looks like a decent option. I went even cheaper. I took an old hammock I already had (not asymmetric), put a Z-Lite in it I already had for bottom insulation, turn a partially zipped mummy bag upside down, which I already had, so it was like a quilt, and made a tarp out of painter’s plastic, gorilla tape, and cord. I avoided mosquitos to start so didn’t have a bug net. So that’s a lot of stuff I already had. If I had not had a hammock there were some pretty inexpensive options from some cottage manufacturers.  Overall, this cheap experiment was enough to convince me I liked hammock camping and then I slowly started replacing parts of that cheap system.

You really do not need a asym hammock to get flat lay. It seems that all of the tested hammocks were in the 10 ft category… 11 ft by 5 ft symmetrical hammock is plenty to give even a 6 ft tall a flat lay if properly hung. Usually, you tend to see very tight suspensions and this does not allow good diagonal lay.
Been hammock camping from early 2000. In the beginning, many things were frustrating. Now… I do not see much difference between tent, tarp nor hammock in complexity.

Andrew,

Did you (or anyone else) notice a comfort difference between the Mantis UL and the regular Mantis? Seems like the 20D UL fabric might be stretchier than the 40D regular fabric, which can be good or bad.

— Rex