Everyone knows what a hammock is, a great place to catch some z’s while out by the lake or camping, right? Today hammocks are more popular than ever before. If you have a teenager, you have probably heard of the phenomenon. Teens love going “hammocking.” Even the online marketers have caught on and have started targeting teens with Instagram ads featuring celebrity teens who like their products.
In our area, high school and junior high students enjoy going “hammocking.” They take light weight backpacking style hammocks and go to the mountains or even just in the back yard and hang them up and relax while visiting and listening to music. The best spots are places where you can hang up several hammocks near to each other and relax. One of the top trends is to hang them up off of electrical towers. However; this is trespassing and can be dangerous so both police and Rocky Mountain Power have asked kids to avoid these areas and to keep their hammocking activity to hanging from trees. The crazy thing is they will even go hammocking in the winter. If it is cold or snowy outside they just bring a warm sleeping bag to wrap up in while hanging out.
The great thing is hammocks are not very expensive. You can get a backpacking hammock starting at about $35 and they can range up to hundreds of dollars if you want all the fancy stuff, but seriously how complex can a hammock be?
I took a minute to ask my two teenagers about hammocking and here are their thoughts.
“It is a place where you can talk with your friends and not have to worry about other things like social media. It is very pretty. I like to go early or late because of the sun rises and sun sets. We like going up by big rock.” -Camryn, 14
“It is fun to do it at night because you get to look up at the stars and lots of kids like to go overnight. Some student athletes will bring them to track events and hang them up under the bleachers so they can relax waiting for their next event. Many times someone will bring a bluetooth speaker so they can play music while hanging out.” -Koby, 16
