Managed to sneak off Friday afternoon to the Baslow area and checked out some of the "Edges".
Its a brilliant area to wild camp as there are so many nooks, crannies and crumbling walls across the access land. Unlike Edale where you are likely to bump into a ranger, its pretty chilled and quite around here, mostly climbers on the edges themselves. oh, and the walking is just brill!
I had in mind finding an overhang to bivvy under, but plans changed as I totally forgot how quick its getting dark now - so a quite corner of an empty field had to suffice.
I set up a Tarp from the wire fence to my walking poles over my bag and set about making dinner, mazed at how bright the moon was. Not a cloud in site. By 8pm it was damping down quick and I decided to get inside the bag and read thew news on my phone. Bizarrely, I cannot get a 3G signal in the town we live in and yet in the middle of nowhere a full 4G signal!!!!
I woke at 5am and my face was Bloody freezing, I also had water dripping from the tarp onto me. Total tarp failure! It was running in condensation and soaked both sided. So, I nipped out and quick took it down and snuggled back down till about 7am.
Pretty suprised to find everything crisp white with frost and the tarp frozen solid! I was super warm - really impressed with the cheap 3 seasons sleeping bag I got off Amazon. Its made by a company called UltraCamp (cue jokes...). It's not the lightest or smallest (taking up about 25 litres of rucksack space) but for the money is tip top!
Made breakfast and decided to walk over to some of the other edges and spent the morning playing mountain goat!
The new kit for this trip was a recently gifted Garmin GPSMAP 64s. Having never used a GPS for walking I was a bit unsure. I downloaded GPX files from routes I had planned on OS Getamap (£18 a year for free maps is well worth it!). The unit came with Topo installed and I can honestly say I was pretty impressed with how easy it was to use. What scared me is how lazy it would make you and no wonder so many people get into trouble when the batteries fail. It seems a good little device though and I can imagine it would come in handy on the tops at Edale where its near impossible to get a sighting with a compass and easy to end up bog trotting around it circles.
So not really a bushcraft weekend - but enjoyable nevertheless. I am finding at the minute my trips are becoming more and more hiking and wild camping or shooting trips and less bushcrafty. Dunno why, just the way it is
Well I hope you all had a great weekend!
Rhyan
Its a brilliant area to wild camp as there are so many nooks, crannies and crumbling walls across the access land. Unlike Edale where you are likely to bump into a ranger, its pretty chilled and quite around here, mostly climbers on the edges themselves. oh, and the walking is just brill!
I had in mind finding an overhang to bivvy under, but plans changed as I totally forgot how quick its getting dark now - so a quite corner of an empty field had to suffice.
I set up a Tarp from the wire fence to my walking poles over my bag and set about making dinner, mazed at how bright the moon was. Not a cloud in site. By 8pm it was damping down quick and I decided to get inside the bag and read thew news on my phone. Bizarrely, I cannot get a 3G signal in the town we live in and yet in the middle of nowhere a full 4G signal!!!!
I woke at 5am and my face was Bloody freezing, I also had water dripping from the tarp onto me. Total tarp failure! It was running in condensation and soaked both sided. So, I nipped out and quick took it down and snuggled back down till about 7am.
Pretty suprised to find everything crisp white with frost and the tarp frozen solid! I was super warm - really impressed with the cheap 3 seasons sleeping bag I got off Amazon. Its made by a company called UltraCamp (cue jokes...). It's not the lightest or smallest (taking up about 25 litres of rucksack space) but for the money is tip top!
Made breakfast and decided to walk over to some of the other edges and spent the morning playing mountain goat!
The new kit for this trip was a recently gifted Garmin GPSMAP 64s. Having never used a GPS for walking I was a bit unsure. I downloaded GPX files from routes I had planned on OS Getamap (£18 a year for free maps is well worth it!). The unit came with Topo installed and I can honestly say I was pretty impressed with how easy it was to use. What scared me is how lazy it would make you and no wonder so many people get into trouble when the batteries fail. It seems a good little device though and I can imagine it would come in handy on the tops at Edale where its near impossible to get a sighting with a compass and easy to end up bog trotting around it circles.
So not really a bushcraft weekend - but enjoyable nevertheless. I am finding at the minute my trips are becoming more and more hiking and wild camping or shooting trips and less bushcrafty. Dunno why, just the way it is
Well I hope you all had a great weekend!
Rhyan
