Camping in the woods in high wind
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Yeah that's a good idea. It's getting to the point where I don't feel safe sleeping in the woods at all any more - especially with this news (to me) of ash dieback - which is sad because that's what woods are for isn't it??
Today I saw a huge beech that looks like it fell in the weekends wind. That was on a slope a bit of a walk away, I'm on the flat. But I was in my tent when a big branch fell about 20 metres away - I heard that. In another wood - I think I mentioned in this thread earlier - a massive fir treetop fell within ten metres of my tent. I look up at the treetops often with great apprehesion... Where I am seems kind of ok. But I want to leave as soon as I finish the hut I'm building. I miss the open moors with just the danger of meteorites and plane engines falling on me!
Today I saw a huge beech that looks like it fell in the weekends wind. That was on a slope a bit of a walk away, I'm on the flat. But I was in my tent when a big branch fell about 20 metres away - I heard that. In another wood - I think I mentioned in this thread earlier - a massive fir treetop fell within ten metres of my tent. I look up at the treetops often with great apprehesion... Where I am seems kind of ok. But I want to leave as soon as I finish the hut I'm building. I miss the open moors with just the danger of meteorites and plane engines falling on me!
How about cargo nets ?
Those stretchy things with hooks on the end for tieing down assorted stuff on car roofs or pick up truck backs.
I don't think good ones would be cheap though.
There is no doubt that during winter storms is realy not a great time to be in the woods, especially alone, as there is no help if disaster happens. With that many close calls, I'd realy seriously be looking at somewhere safer to be, rather trying to tie ropes above your camp. I realy don't think they would be at all effective . You'd need a big serious rope net above you, and even then, tie outs could snap with sudden weight loads, tipping the whole load onto you anyway.
I realy think it's a false sense of security, which could end up bad.
The best option is safer ground, scrub and low brush rather than big trees. I know in a weird way you feel more protected from the wind "inland" but you are only swopping one uncomfortable problem for another potentially more dangerous one.
Stay safe.
I realy think it's a false sense of security, which could end up bad.
The best option is safer ground, scrub and low brush rather than big trees. I know in a weird way you feel more protected from the wind "inland" but you are only swopping one uncomfortable problem for another potentially more dangerous one.
Stay safe.
Thanks toddy, I considered a net too and came to same conclusion that a good one is too expensive and also too bulky - but perhaps a strategy for more permanent stays.
Yeah that's a good point too, there's no way of knowing from the ground whether a branch or treetop or whole tree will fall. Even if it falls away from you I suppose the roots coming up from underground could do some damage.
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I know that in the past the folks who had to work and live in the woods used to pull over the tops of saplings and lash them together. Those eventually became 'benders' made over hazel and willow rods with a tarp tied down over them.
Bodgers, bark peelers, charcoal makers, copicers, swine herders, they all lived in the woods they worked in.
Even the folks who live in South American jungles, and the African pygmies who live in Africa's woods make those kind of 'huts'.
Here those woodlands were actively managed though, copicing is an old art of long provenance. Trees grown for timber other than rods, Oak, Elm, etc., those aren't so likely to drop like Beech can do, nor as likely to go down in windrows like plantation pine.
Not saying they don't crack or fall, because they do, but they're not so liable, iimmc ?
I think Woody girl's suggestion about a clearing among smaller stuff is probably your best bet if you have to be there.
I do think being aware is the best you can do if you can't get out of it.
Bodgers, bark peelers, charcoal makers, copicers, swine herders, they all lived in the woods they worked in.
Even the folks who live in South American jungles, and the African pygmies who live in Africa's woods make those kind of 'huts'.
Here those woodlands were actively managed though, copicing is an old art of long provenance. Trees grown for timber other than rods, Oak, Elm, etc., those aren't so likely to drop like Beech can do, nor as likely to go down in windrows like plantation pine.
Not saying they don't crack or fall, because they do, but they're not so liable, iimmc ?
I think Woody girl's suggestion about a clearing among smaller stuff is probably your best bet if you have to be there.
I do think being aware is the best you can do if you can't get out of it.
It's not just Ash dieback (and Beeches) to worry about: for example, the Grey Squirrels have brutalised many (most) of the Silver Birches in my woodland, stripping the bark around the whole tree in great lengths. As the top of the trees die parts of them are getting blown down in the wind / gales.
Good to know. I thought conifer plantations among the safest woods, even after my close encounter with the douglas fir tree top. John Muir wrote a great account of riding out a gale at the top of one of them!
If you are feeling nervous in the woods about the trees falling, then listen to your gut feelings. They are trying to tell you something.
Rather than try to mitigate the situation with a flimsy, and probably useless idea, in the hope you'll keep safe, move to a safer spot. You know it makes sense deep inside.
As Toddy said. People who lived in benders etc mostly lived in well managed coppice woodlands, rather than conifer plantations, and big tree woods, so there wasn't so much of a risk of big trees falling on them.
Rather than try to mitigate the situation with a flimsy, and probably useless idea, in the hope you'll keep safe, move to a safer spot. You know it makes sense deep inside.
As Toddy said. People who lived in benders etc mostly lived in well managed coppice woodlands, rather than conifer plantations, and big tree woods, so there wasn't so much of a risk of big trees falling on them.
As well as lighting their fires I think that they're doing it to get their own back on me for shooting a number of their brethren in the past. You'd think that me planting a load of new trees for them would have paid that debt off? Nah...They use it to light their fires.
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