Hammock Festival attendees participate in the 'hammock tower' while waiting for the official hammock count. While the official count did not beat the current world record, participants still enjoyed festival activities. (Lexie Flickinger)
Friends and local outdoor enthusiasts gathered at the CLAS Ropes Course for this year’s Utah Hammock Festival on Sept. 7 and 8.
The event included a variety of activities like kayaking, rock climbing, slacklining, volleyball, Spikeball and live music. Participants also enjoyed a variety of food trucks.
The main attraction of this year’s festival was an official count to break the hammocking world record. The current world record — held in Mainz, Germany — is 269 hammockers.
Event organizer Adriel Johnson said the hammock events started with a small group of friends and a small tower with only eight hammocks, then the number of attendees grew, and he began to speak with sponsors.
“That was two years ago, and this year we decided to make it bigger and better,” Johnson said. “This year we wanted to accomplish something, and so we decided to go for the world record.”
Johnson’s original hammocking group started as a Facebook group known as Moab and Beyond where friends could post about canyoneering trips and hammocking outings.
UVU student Sierra Lawrence has been a member of the group since her freshmen year of college and has participated in several group trips and events.
When she heard about the event coming together this year she couldn’t wait to get involved.
“It’s cool that we all get to help throw this hammock festival and invite as many people as we can and share our love and passion for outdoors and hammocking with a lot of other people. This is a really unique and fun event for us,” Lawrence said.
When it came time for the official count, participants gathered around hammocking areas including a climbing wall where a hammock tower was set up.
Harrison Riehle was one of the hammock tower participants and said he has been a fan of the hammock tower since the first event two years ago.
“This is the kind of event that every year just gets better and better because more and more people will come, and the more people that come the more fun it will be,” Riehle said.
By the end of the event, the official hammocking count came in just under 200. While participants didn't beat the world record, they did set the U.S. record.
Even though Johnson and his crew didn't reach their world record goal, they will continue to share their love of hammocking and the outdoors with others.
For an inside look at the event see the video below:
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