Trip Report Haversack Camping Challenge

[Barney Rubble]

Hi all,

Hope all is well. I thought I'd share this adventure with you from last week as it did indeed contain some semblance of bushcraft!

This was a challenge that my camp buddies and I thought up a couple of months back. We like to challenge ourselves from time to time. In the past we've embarked on daysack camping challenges and the like, but with modern kit that is a relatively easy challenge nowadays.

So the idea of a winter haversack challenge was established. We agreed that we could only camp with the kit that we could pack in a haversack (with some flexibility for smock pockets too!). We agreed a date in early January and began to plan our adventure.

There was four of us on this challenge and we agreed to embark on this as individuals rather than team up to share responsibilities. We each followed a different strategy in terms of the kit that we packed and I give you a run down of the kit that I packed in my video. I approached this challenge with Dave Canterbury's 5 C's of survival front and centre in my mind and ensured that I had all of those bases covered.

However, embarking on a winter camp in which you don't have any sleep kit is a real game changer and makes you think about every facet of your camp. Fire is king in this scenario!

And we needed to hug the fire for all It was worth because it was a freezing cold weekend with snow forecast.

It was a fantastic challenge though, we all learned so much about ourselves and our approach to the camp. Next time, I'll probably do things slightly different with a larger shelter and a browse bed to contain the leaf litter. I'd also invest more time in processing the firewood down to more manageable lengths so that I didn't have to keep getting up to tend the fire (lazy!!).

Kudos to John who embarked on this challenge with me, I don't suppose there are many septuagenarians who'd be up for this ridiculous challenge, but he smashed it.

How would you approach a winter haversack challenge? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

As always, we cleared up after ourselves and ensured that no trace was left.

 

[mowerman]

Absolutely loved that video and I've subscribed

 

[gg012]

What a challenge! Fair play for doing something out of the ordinary and that's a great video too.

 

[Barney Rubble]

Absolutely loved that video and I've subscribed

What a challenge! Fair play for doing something out of the ordinary and that's a great video too.

Cheers both, glad you enjoyed it. My aim is to complete another couple of winter wild camps in which I forego the sleeping bag or blanket. Next camp will be with the canvas tarp and sheepskin for a bit of extra comfort.

 

[John Fenna]

I did a similar thing a few years back - 24 hours living out of a small survival tin/worn clothing
Some of my clothing was made by me as well.
It was fun (if cold and hungry as there was not a lot to forage) but it tests your Bushcraft skills!

 

[Barney Rubble]

I did a similar thing a few years back - 24 hours living out of a small survival tin/worn clothing
Some of my clothing was made by me as well.
It was fun (if cold and hungry as there was not a lot to forage) but it tests your Bushcraft skills!

Great effort John and some impressive skills on display in those pictures. This indeed is something that I've discussed doing with my camp buddies as a sort of smock based camping challenge.

 

[Venator55]

Entertaining video Gavin. You are always going to learn something on a trip like that. I must confess, the thought of not being covered by a blanket or something just doesn’t seem conducive to a good nights sleep, but as the saying goes, you don’t know till you try. As you have alluded to in some of your videos, you learn a lot about yourself when you are prepared to step outside your comfort zone. I don’t recall seeing you hammock camp Gavin, or have I missed those videos ? Whatever, your videos are nicely put together and worth watching, keep em coming.

 

[Tony]

Great stuff, thanks for posting the pics and I particularly enjoyed the discussions

 

[Barney Rubble]

Entertaining video Gavin. You are always going to learn something on a trip like that. I must confess, the thought of not being covered by a blanket or something just doesn’t seem conducive to a good nights sleep, but as the saying goes, you don’t know till you try. As you have alluded to in some of your videos, you learn a lot about yourself when you are prepared to step outside your comfort zone. I don’t recall seeing you hammock camp Gavin, or have I missed those videos ? Whatever, your videos are nicely put together and worth watching, keep em coming.

Thanks, agree with your thoughts about not being covered with a blanket or sleeping bag. I found it to be quite a significant psychological barrier to overcome. In reality, you're still wrapped up in several layers of clothing, hat, buff, gloves etc and have a warm fire in front of you. It wasn't as bad as you might think.

Hammocking, yes indeedy. I used to do nothing but hammock camping and there are some older videos on my channel (my last hammock camp video was in 2020). I ended up selling my hammock kit because I fell out of love with hammocking and got a bit fed up with the faff of getting the angle of the dangle set up just right and having to carry a suitably large tarp. In recent years, I've taken a great deal of satisfaction from a more basic camp setup and much prefer the simplicity of throwing up a tarp/poncho and sleeping in a bivvy bag atop a simple foam mat. Much less to go wrong!