Solo wild camping

[Erbswurst]

Didn't anyone collect the sounds?
Birds voices usually we can get.

Don't we get the other sounds recorded?

I think, that would help beginners.

In the beginning I was very surprised how noisy the animals had been. I heard a noise. I was looking. Nothing to see.

I took a torch. Nothing to see.

I waited. After a while the noise came back.

But it wasn't a large animal, that behaved quiet. No it was simply a noisy mouse!

Or an other one of that size.

Even the fox I expected to be quiet, sometimes is very, very noisy.
He comes to your camp in the night and makes noise next to you that in a tent you aren't far away from a hard attack!

An other reason against tents in the forest! You do not see the horrible creatures around your tent. In a poncho shelter you would realize, that it isn't a large Zombie, no it's just a mouse!

 

[Woody girl]

Heart stopping moment this summer. Wildcamping under the stars no tarp as is my want on a lovely summer night. Only conssession was a camp cot as my bones no longer like the hard ground. I was fast asleep when I was suddenly woken by a shrill scream comming from under the cot right by my head. Whooo what a fright. Never found out what it was. Stoat and mouse perhaps? No idea. Once I had accertained there was nothing there with my trusty torch I just went back to sleep. Can laugh now but it was almost an involuntary wee wee moment at the time!

 

[mousey]

The scariest time I've had while camping out was at Malham Cove [along the Pennine] I'd decided to bivi at the top because of the great view. I was watching a bird of prey which came over and hovered a number of meters above me for what seemed like a very long time. After a while I got a bit of an irrational fear the thing was deciding weather to dive and attack me or not, and I just imagined this thing dive bombing me with sharp claws and beak tearing at my face.... [I even got my arms out of my bivi and sleeping bag just in case - very slowly as I still didn't want to scare it away! I was fascinated watching it]

noises and such have never really bothered me. Although I've never heard a tree fall, I think that'd be the most scary thing as I mostly hammock camp now.

 

[Broch]

The scariest thing that has woken me sleeping in the woods was a MBT (a Chieftain) coming in to camp in the early hours in pitch black conditions (blackout); I decided the oak tree I was sleeping next to just wasn't big enough!

 

[Janne]

If you gals ever venture into the deepest and coldest northern Sweden you might experience when the birch trees crack due to the freezing.
Sounds like a very loud gun shot.
The first time it happened to me I almost soiled my trousers, I thought somebody was trying to shoot me.

 

[Woody girl]

Let's not forget the amazing things like watching a vixen and two cubs playing only yards away, or the badgers drinking from a stream you are camped near, or waking to see a herd of wild ponies quietly grazing nearby. A woodpecker on the tree above. Nature can give wonderful and special moments.

 

[Woody girl]

Nowadays I mostly use a hammock but at least once or twice a year I like to camp under the stars with no tarp or hammock. I do use a cheap lightweight cot as my bones no longer like anything less than an airbed if I'm on the ground. You see so much more of nature like this. Shooting stars are a particular favorite of mine. I go out every August on a fine clear night and lay there watching them for hours. I always get a bonus experience...... like the one I mentioned earlier. The strangest tho not realy nature related was lying beneath an old and favourite oak Tree with my daughter and watching strange lights in the sky dancing around in circles and behaving very strangely. We were both convinced we were watching ufo,s. A few days later our local paper had the explanation. There was a music feastival many miles away and we were watching their laser light show.

 

[Barney Rubble]

Nowadays I mostly use a hammock but at least once or twice a year I like to camp under the stars with no tarp or hammock. I do use a cheap lightweight cot as my bones no longer like anything less than an airbed if I'm on the ground. You see so much more of nature like this. Shooting stars are a particular favorite of mine. I go out every August on a fine clear night and lay there watching them for hours. I always get a bonus experience...... like the one I mentioned earlier. The strangest tho not realy nature related was lying beneath an old and favourite oak Tree with my daughter and watching strange lights in the sky dancing around in circles and behaving very strangely. We were both convinced we were watching ufo,s. A few days later our local paper had the explanation. There was a music feastival many miles away and we were watching their laser light show.

Yep I've slept 'cowboy style' under the stars a few times this year and it's a wonderful experience looking up at the night sky while you drift off to sleep. It's also a nice bonus in the morning when you don't have so much to pack away!

 

[Woody girl]

Definitely the less you have the better it is. Being older and creakyer than I used to be in need extras... meds chair etc. Isn't it a bummer? I can't carry it all! Solution a bit bizarre but it works.. a 4 wheel shopping trolly. I may look at bit odd in the woods with it but it has other uses. Storage,table, wood collection etc. I'm not giving up till my wheels fall off... and I'm not talking about the trolly!

 

[Joe tahkahikew]

I think of the most scary things you Brits do - and one of you has said it already - is to camp in the trees. We always try to avoid this because many branches fall off in storms and bad weather. Seems odd we have so much forest and avoid it. You have almost nothing and seek it out.

 

[Woody girl]

It's probably because we don't have so much forest that we seek it out. Nowhere better to be. The woods are safer than the towns anyway.plus we don't have bears , lynx, and wolves etc like you might have. At least suspended in a tree the slugs and bugs don't get you, and it's comfortable.

 

[Janne]

The Brits are thick skulled, so no worries there, Joe!

 

[Woody girl]

OY! How very dare you call us brits thick skulled.we just don't go down so quick as others and we bounce better!

 

[nobby8126]

Only ever been spooked once and nervous once on a solo, the first was a fast moving big ish animal run through camp as I was nodding off. Sounded like a big dog running through camp to big to be a fox and movement was not deer or badger etc, a few week later a local shoot had taken a fox about the size of a labrador so that could explain that and my brain was half a sleep so could have pieced what I heard together wrong.

The second was having a stag too close for comfort a couple of weeks ago while out on a hammock camp, they are a different beast during the rut.