I woke up on the 1st of January and decided to head out for a few days, so I packec up the car and headed north. It was dark by the time I arrived at Loch Etive and it took me a while to find somewhere to set up camp but morning broke to find me at the north end of the Loch set up in a small stand of Alder and Holly looking out over the Loch to the rugged crags of Ben Starav (NN 10850 45010).
After breakfast and a hour or two bimbling about I set of for Glen Coe. A friend had mentioned a campsite that I wanted to try, Red Squirrel Campsite http://www.redsquirrelcampsite.com (~NN 12000 57350). I wanted to give it a go as they allow fires and have plenty of areas for hammock camping.
The first night was wild, with gale force winds whipping up the Glen, at one point I thought my tarp was going to get shredded, in fact I did lose one of the attachment points from the middle of one edge, but my underblanket/quilt combination worked well and kept me warm even though the temperature dropped below zero at one point.
Next day the winds had died down so I re-pitched in a more sheltered spot on the camp, with my DD 3x2 as a wind-break and my new hex-fly set up over my hammock. I got chatting to a couple of people that had a camper-van, they'd been there the first night, but had found it too wild and cold so had decided to pack up. They very kindly gave me half a sack of coal that they'd brought with them, so I had a toasty night by a warm fire despite the snow that had started falling.
That night it snowed on and off with the occasional strong gust of wind, this time I had set up with the Wanderingstar design underblanket and my own homemade underblanket which has a waterproof outer shell. I ended up so warm that I had to strip down to my base-layer to sleep comfortably.
Woke up to the mountains around me covered in snow. I had thought about staying on another night at the campsite, but a blizzard blew in and I figured discretion was the order of the day. I have no doubt that my sleeping set up would have been warm enough to deal with whatever the weather threw at me.
So, if you're looking for a place to camp and like the security of a campsite that also allows fires, I'd heartily recommend Red Squirrel.
After breakfast and a hour or two bimbling about I set of for Glen Coe. A friend had mentioned a campsite that I wanted to try, Red Squirrel Campsite http://www.redsquirrelcampsite.com (~NN 12000 57350). I wanted to give it a go as they allow fires and have plenty of areas for hammock camping.
The first night was wild, with gale force winds whipping up the Glen, at one point I thought my tarp was going to get shredded, in fact I did lose one of the attachment points from the middle of one edge, but my underblanket/quilt combination worked well and kept me warm even though the temperature dropped below zero at one point.
Next day the winds had died down so I re-pitched in a more sheltered spot on the camp, with my DD 3x2 as a wind-break and my new hex-fly set up over my hammock. I got chatting to a couple of people that had a camper-van, they'd been there the first night, but had found it too wild and cold so had decided to pack up. They very kindly gave me half a sack of coal that they'd brought with them, so I had a toasty night by a warm fire despite the snow that had started falling.
That night it snowed on and off with the occasional strong gust of wind, this time I had set up with the Wanderingstar design underblanket and my own homemade underblanket which has a waterproof outer shell. I ended up so warm that I had to strip down to my base-layer to sleep comfortably.
Woke up to the mountains around me covered in snow. I had thought about staying on another night at the campsite, but a blizzard blew in and I figured discretion was the order of the day. I have no doubt that my sleeping set up would have been warm enough to deal with whatever the weather threw at me.
So, if you're looking for a place to camp and like the security of a campsite that also allows fires, I'd heartily recommend Red Squirrel.
