Solutions for sleeping in a 5ft short-bed!

Never understood why people always want to sleep in / on their truck. Just seems like more trouble then it's worth.

When I'm with people I sleep in a tent, if I'm solo I sleep in a hammock.

 

For me, it's a 5 minute set up and tear down. This is nice when you've been driving for a while, and want to get up at the butt crack of dawn for activities (fishing, for me). Also it's slightly more structural, I think that subconsciously adds some peace of mind.

I can sleep diagonally in my 5' bed, I'm 5'9".If i'm camping with anyone else, you better believe I'm setting up the tent.

 

I only do it when I'm on a mission, like rolling into a trailhead at 11pm and waking up at 4AM to scramble up a mountain. No sense setting up a tent in that situation. Can have my pad/bag all set up in the bed and crash.

 

Ah nice! That's what kicked off this thread! How do you like it? Reviews said the quality (sewing) isn't great but the price is right. I'm trying to wrap up the 14ers before my 40th next year, so if it gets me through one season it'd be worth it!

 

Lt. Dan would not have this problem!

 

Set up and tear down. I used a tent in boyscouts, and I hated packing it up. When I got my first truck and slept in the bed in the desert, that pretty much ended tents for me.

 

My setup / tear down of tents is less then 5 min (except that giant REI tent, that's around 10 min). My hammock is under a min.

Guess I could see it being a better option in the desert, or at the beach. It's easy to find flat ground, and everything's dirt there.

 

Looking at your pics, setting up that tent in under 5 or that hammock in under 1 is like saying you run a 4 minute mile. i live in forests now and the tent thing still isn't happening for me. It's not even the tent per se (though I couldn't set that tent up in under a half hour, and there would be bloodshed, screaming, sacrificing to tent gods, emotional breakdowns) it's all the shit that goes in the tent, must come out. Then you gotta baby the tent when you pack it up, store the tent, etc. I'll be setting up a hammock in the backyard this year, but for camping it always creeped me out. I feel like a meat piñata for wildcats.

 

Haha, yeah I was thinking the same thing. I'd like to see someone set up that hammock in under 1 min, or even just find a good spot for it under 1 min, especially when pulling into a spot after dark. Looks like a pain in the ass. My wife got me one and I've never even used it. Kind of a pain to find a decent spot to set up. But it's the trendy thing these days I guess...

With the tent, you gotta find a spot, put your footpring down, set up the tent, put the rainfly on, get your sleeping pad inflated or rolled out, get your sleeping bag laid out, then you gotta pack up all your shit in the morning.

I'm talking about rolling into a campsite/trailhead with my pad/pillow/sleeping bag all ready for me in the bed. You just loop that tailgate tent over your topper and you're good to go to sleep. In the morning just get up and go.. take 2 min to rip down your tailgate tent solo and throw it in the back.

If I'm camping to camp, sure I'll set up a tent, but when camping is secondary to something else like fishing, climbing, biking, etc... sleeping in the bed is great!

 

Getting up and taking off is an element that is very appreciated by me. When I road trip I just find a spot and go to sleep. I don't have to take my sleeping bag OUT of an enclosure to put it back in a separate enclosure that I previously took it out of and shake the dirt out of it.

I was thinking about the option to just pull off the highway and sleep when it becomes a necessity, you find yourself a nice target parking lot (not Walmart mind you) and go to sleep. Can't do that with a hammock, I've thought about it. The only place you can set up a hammock in a target parking lot is the shopping cart return, and that's just looking for trouble if you ask me.

 

The hammock uses woopie slings, carabiners, and snake skins. It's super easy to setup. All you do is clip it to the tree straps, slide the slings tight, slide the skins off, unroll it, and stake the tarp.

 

If it's warmish (anything north of 35) and not raining, I sleep in the bed and I'm 6'2". I carry a tent in the event of rain or my desire to keep heat in (or if it's below 0 to use the tent heater a bit). I've also spent probably 50 nights in roof top tents over the years, so I'm familiar with the setup/take down on those.

I would say sleeping in the back is certainly and absolutely the quickest way to set up camp and you don't have to worry about finding a suitable spot on the ground or between trees, but like anything else it has it's moments and limitations. It's already been touched on, but for desert or beach camping hammocks aren't an option since there isn't much to attach them to (plus my back doesn't like them). Sure, you can can setup or take down a ground or RTT in under 5 minutes, but that doesn't account for cleaning the thing out and stowing everything so really breaking camp is more like 15 minutes. When I sleep in the bed of my truck, I just stack one bin on top of the other, throw down my pad and sleeping bag and I'm done. Clean up is just the pad/bag and I put the gear box back.. so like maybe 3 minutes.

 

Any thoughts on how to make this work?

 

I use a similar setup. Warbonnet blackbird and superfly. When I roll up at night, I'll usually just set everything but the rain fly up ... takes a whole 46 seconds. I tend to fiddle around with the fly though, because I'm a little OCD about it.

 

I sleep diagonally in my camper shell quite often. I'm 6'1" and can sleep comfortably.

 

I sleep in tents a lot as well, but nothing beats the hard sides of a truck cap in the winter. Also, many trailheads around here are paved or right on private property. Often times it's illegal to set up a tent but nobody cares if you sleep in your car.

I really like it and haven't noticed any quality issues at all really. Like I said, it's ugly, but it does the job. There can be a slight draft making its way through the sides if you don't have it really tight.

Good luck on the 14ers! I'm heading up Quandary this Saturday (hopefully) which makes 20ish for me I believe. I've been gravitating more towards 13ers lately due to the crowds.

 

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/lightweight-camper-build.465804/

I am about halfway through building my cheapo camper. Would certainly fit in a short bed. Maybe it will give you some fresh ideas?

 

Yeah, the 14ers are kind of a shitshow. Thankfully, I only have some in the San Juans/Sangres/Elks left, ready to just move on to some obscure spots after that! I'm sure you'll have lots of company on Quandary this weekend!

Pretty cool.. looking forward to seeing it installed. Beer is the mother of all invention!

 

Thanks for sharing. I'll be watching that thread closely, it's a great idea.