​My first mountain night out with the Durston X-Dome didn’t go very well haha!

There was a standard slightly ropey mountain forecast but nothing out of the ordinary. I wasn’t expecting it to be a bad-weather-tent-test kinda camp and I thought I was pitching in a nice sheltered spot by a lake backed by majestic cliffs, then the wind changed direction, naturally

The tent poles were bending inwards, two of the pole sections kept pulling apart and then the crossbar snapped. I didn’t manage to get the tent up fully so I can’t say how it would have fared if I’d finished with it, but I just don’t trust lightweight pole tents in our unhinged UK weather

This tent has performed very well in more sheltered conditions (see that video here), it has innovative design features and is a great tent. I just don't think that lightweight and 'stormworthy' are qualities that can be found together in pole tents. In my experience, you choose one or the other

I’d tried stealth camping close to this road before, hidden in a bit of a divot in the ground, and pulled it off quite successfully, so this time I decided to try it in plain sight instead
It was all going a bit wonky from the start..

Firstly, I bought green woodland camo netting, as I was expecting the area to be full of waist-high ferns. However, the ferns were low and sparse, so the green camo was totally the wrong colour.

Secondly, there was a red ants next right under where I wanted to run my tarp from a tree in a low plough point configuration that would be easy to blend into the ground.

But, not being one to give up easily, I gave it a go anyway, placing the shelter further toward the road, away from the ants, and using a low-ish lean-to configuration, that would be just high enough for me to be able to sit behind it unnoticed, hopefully

The camo netting being the wrong colour wasn’t too much of an issue in the end, as the texture of it allowed me to weave sticks into it and hold leaves and debris in place, making it satisfactorily blend into the surrounding colours. Once finished, I felt confident that I wouldn’t be seen by any passing vehicles, but I didn’t feel confident that I would go unnoticed by anyone walking by. But this was a country road with no paths, so I wasn’t expecting people to be walking along it anyway

It was a warm and humid afternoon in late June and I was missing my English Adventure, Stranded.

So, I decided to jump in the car and take a drive up to Northamptonshire, to one of the footpaths that I had walked on that long journey. I had no plan, a small tarp and a bivi bag, and my map showed that there was an open access woodland not too far away, so I headed for that, passing by a big muddy puddle teeming with bugs, but not thinking much of it

The woods were beautiful, quiet, all long grass and wildflowers. I’d forgotten my trekking poles so I fashioned a walking stick from a fallen branch and found a lil nook to pop my tarp up and settle down for the night

I heated up a home-made chicken curry as the bugs came out. Mozzies and glow worms buzzed about, muntjac barked, pheasants squawked and crows cawed. And then it was dark.

​I had absolutely no sleep this night, due to three things;

🦉 A persistent squeaky bird that squeaked all. night. long. And I could still hear it through my ear plugs

🔦 Weird bright lights through the trees all night. At first, I thought it was other people, so I turned my own lights off and sat quietly watching, hoping to go unnoticed. But then I realised, there was no sound. Surely if it were people, I would hear them in the quiet of the woods at night, but aside from the godawful squeaky bird, all was eerily silent
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🦟 The mozzies, which had already bitten me through my clothes at dusk, and now in the early hours once in my sleeping bag, decided to start attacking my face instead, right through my lil bug net. They tormented me buzzing around my head and the itching was driving me nuts

So all in all, this was not the relaxing night out that I had in mind. I’d never experienced the mozzies going for my face so relentlessly before and it’s kinda put me off bivi camping in the summer a bit.. but, it was so lovely to go exploring a bit closer to home and get out of my usual, local woods

Hope you’re all having a lovely summer Wild Ones!

I ended up bailing on this autumn camp, but it was so freakin' beautiful regardless 

I set up my superlight tarp in the forest- a plow point from a tree, nestled among moss-covered rocks. I loved this lil set-up so much.. I felt so cosy as the rain came down and I settled in my sleeping bag and had my tea. But just as it had gotten dark, I suddenly saw lights moving through the forest. I turned my lights off and waited for them to pass, but they stayed. The lights moved around in one general area, occasionally flashing in my direction, the light passing over my camp. Realistically, they wouldn’t have been able to see me with my lights off from that distance, but they probably already saw my lights earlier and might be wondering if I was still there

I waited around for an hour and felt more and more on edge, just sitting in the dark. I would never have been able to sleep now, so I decided to leave. I managed to pack up my entire camp in the pitch back by feel alone, only using dim light when I was ready to leave, to check I hadn’t left anything behind. By now there was a fire blazing along with the lights, but, it was kinda cool to find that I know my gear so well that I can pack away blindly

On my womble down through the trees, it was hard to make out the rough paths in the dark, the stars shone through the canopy and there were more lights, in different places. I’m not travelling far from my car at the moment due to my poorly ankle, so I guess I’m more likely to run into others. I kinda take it for granted that I’m alone out there, and it made me nervous to find out that I wasn’t
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Back at the car, I drove to a quiet layby nearby, made a hot drink and arranged my car bed. Now out in the open, the heavenly display above Landy was absolutely stunning – one of the most beautiful night skies that I’ve ever seen. I slept soundly and deeply for 8 hours and woke to the sun peeping through the autumn foliage before driving home, well rested and, in retrospect, loving my little misadventure. Sometimes it doesn’t go to plan, but that’s ok. I may have hated realising that I wasn’t alone, fearful avenues that my mind goes down when it conjures up the possible dark consequences of running into possibly dark humans alone at night. But as always, once I wake, alive and well I am full of gratitude for it all – I loved so many things about this lil trip

Hmm.. a night in the wild with a busted ankle.. this was not what I had in mind.
 
I twist and turn my right ankle multiple times, every time I go out. Usually escaping injury by bracing onto my trekking pole, although I have torn a ligament in this ankle twice previously. However, this time, I had just left my car and hadn't yet retrieved the pole from the side pocket of my rucksack (where it's no use to anyone, I might add!) The twist was so painful that I initially wondered if I'd broken it. I wailed like a wounded animal and breathed, and waited. And then something strange happened. It was only a few minutes later when the pain faded away. I tried putting weight on the ankle, and it was fine. I tentatively tried walking on it, and it was fine. I was a little baffled by it all, and was aware that the ankle felt a little.. weird I guess? But it didn't hurt at all now, so I decided I must just be having a low-pain-threshold kinda day, I had clearly over-reacted to a twisted ankle, and so I decided to carry on - this time with my pole in hand.
 
I arrived at the most beautiful spot by a lake, only 1km up into the mountains at 280m elevation. The water was still and mirror-like and the sky and the surrounding ridges & peaks shone in it's surface. The day was getting on - it was 7pm in mid September and the sun had already dipped below the hills. I popped up my tent, had a quick dip in the water and settled down for the night, warming my tea and hoping to see stars - it was a new moon, and I was excited to see the milky way before the summer was out. The night sky was entirely covered with cloud though, and outside the tent was black as ink. I love it when it's like that - it's a proper, deep darkness that I never experience at home near the cities
 
A few sheep-friends skittered about on the rocks behind, and hoard of Whirly-Giggs (crane flies) descended on me in the tent, dive-bombing my face (they were loving the red light on my head torch haha) and resulting in some fairly unhinged screeching before they were promptly evicted (cue more unhinged screeching). Only then did it occur to me.. my ankle was starting to throb. I had a look at it, and it looked fine. I'd planned for this to be a 2-night trip. So I thought maybe I'd just have an easy day tomorrow and not go as far as I'd planned.
 
I lay and listened and dozed to light rain on the tent, and then the clouds parted - just a little! But enough for a blanket of bright stars to come sparkling through ✨ and I fell into a lovely sleep in my lil tent next to the lake
 
When I woke up in the morning, my ankle was clearly quite angry with me. It hurt pretty bad and had a lovely swelling sticking out of the side of it. I tried standing, and struggled to weight bear, and I knew it was injured. I cursed my stupidity at coming up here on an injury, hopping and jumping over streams with 17kg on my back on a torn ligament, because the injury was initially so painful, that my body had flooded itself with endorphins to kill the pain. Well, it worked pretty effectively, but now I was up in the mountains with a busted ankle, which was less than ideal
 
Thankfully, I was only 1km up. I took painkillers & anti-inflammatories with my coffee and bandaged the offending ankle up while I waited for them to start working. Slightly heartbroken at having to leave already and dreading the hobble back down, I packed my things. Then I put away the tent like a wonky donkey.
 
Unable to jump over the boggy end of the lake as I had done on the way up, I carefully traversed the drystone dam instead, and then slowly descended. So that was that, not only was there no night 2, but they'll be no multi-night trips for a while.
 
I have a connective tissue disorder called Hypermobility Spectrum Disorder which makes me injury-prone (among many other things haha), and it turns out that I've now developed a chronic instability in my right ankle due to too many injuries. It just can't hold itself up any more. It's 3 weeks later now and I'm getting around fine, it doesn't hurt to walk on it but it's not completely healed yet. It's also very weak. So I'm back in physio again, starting next week. The swelling has nearly gone, but I've no other option but to brace the ankle with splints for hiking going forward. I've tried this on a couple of short walks and it's been fine so far. I'll find out through physio if it's gonna be possible to get a suitable amount of strength back in the ankle or not. So that is the plan

​I thought I'd try the stone hut with a tarp thing again, but this time with a ridiculously heavy, robust 3x3m polycotton tarp

I was pretty confident that this was gonna work out and I'd get that cosy night in the hut that I was hoping for

But, it was not to be. This tarp didn't rip in the wind like the last one did, but it did let water through instead. It was a wet night, spent entirely in the bivi bag in an attempt to stay dry, plus no sleep whatsoever. Not really what I had in mind, haha!

Pretty sure I've decided to give up on this stone-hut-with-a-tarp idea 🥴

​I came across this cute lil roofless stone hut back in the autumn and made a plan to come back, using a tarp for a roof
 
This started off cosy as hell but the ropey weather forecast soon turned to full-on stormy. The slate was starting to rip the tarp and when the wind really got going late at night, it got completely destroyed
 
One side of the tarp was ripped off entirely, as was the back corner. Goodbye tarp! 👋
 
Good solid type 2 fun haha!