I went to Glyn Y Mul with a couple of others for a weekend of food, fire, good company and a bit of bushcraft.
My first trip there taught me a lot about what kit to take (because I didn't take the right stuff and ended up cold, miserable and bailed out after one night!) and so after a year or so of going out to various places and being comfortable I wanted to go back and do things properly.
My first trip out: http://hotchpotchblog.wordpress.com/2012/12/31/wild-camping-with-cpap/
The kit I took this time:
Sleep
Snugpak Softie Elite 5 Sleeping Bag
Bivi Bag
Small travel pillow (absolutely pointless and ended up using my coat)
Thermorest XTherm sleeping mat
Shelter
DD 3x3 Brown Tarp (with extra pegs)
IPK sheet
Two trekking poles
Cooking
Stainless steel bottle (Pathfinder)
Stainless steel mug (Pathfinder)
14cm Billy Can
Hexi Stove (for the first coffee of the morning)
Lid from a can of potatoes to act as a lid for the mug
Clothing
Thermal base layer
Craghopper winter lined trousers
Couple of T-shirts
Wool jumper
Coat (nothing special)
Folding poncho (to go over everything if needed)
Wellies
Spare socks
Clean shirt
Sharps
Gerber Combo Axe
Mora Robust (didn't use)
Neck knife
Folding saw
Folding trowel
Water
Katadyn Mini
Millbank type bag
Purification tablets (boiled, so didn't use, but like to have them)
Bits and Pieces
First Aid Kit (adapted) (larger kit in the car)
Alcohol hand gel
Wash kit
Head Torch and Spare Batteries
Tarred Twine
Plant ID book
Printed OS Map of the surrounding area
Camera
"Comfort" Bottle
Fire
Spark Stick
Fire piston
Charcloth in a tin
Lighter
Couple of sticks of fatwood
Tinder Card
Fire Biscuits
Twine
Snacks
Coffee
Chocolate bars
Porridge
Orange fizzy vitamin C tablets (nice to flavour some water with too)
Peanuts
Home made biltong
Mug shots
Hip flask
Red Wine carton
...and my CPAP kit.
That's pretty much it for my kit, unless I've forgotten something.
We took communal food along:
Flour
Diced Beef (frozen)
Pigeon Breasts (frozen)
Redcurrant Jelly
Mushrooms
Instant Mushroom Risotto
Porridge
Rainbow Trout
Stew pack of vegetables
Small tubs of honey
The approach to the railway line:
The river:
I don't remember part of the path down by the river having stones on it, so maybe they'd been put there since to help with the bogginess of the path.
We found a spot and set up camp. I went for the same tarptent setup as I did when I camped out last month in Sussex.
Some damp firewood let everyone know where we were.
There was plenty of space inside and I wasn't too shut off from seeing the outside world... not a bad night time view...
The moon was bright and lit up our little clearing.
This time there was plenty of condensation on the inside of my setup both mornings and I managed to shift in the night so that I was breathing right up against the wall so it ended up dripping down on me.
I think that next time I use that configuration I'll sleep lengthways in the tarptent, rather than widthways, with my head near the door.
Each night I was visited by a slug! I helpfully moved it on its way back into the open and it repaid this kindness by sliming my tarp!
We had enough bottled water for a day, so filtered and boiled some of the water from the river.
I used the Katadyn Mini which is nice and light and produced clear water, but took a while to fill two 14cm Billy Cans.
Then I had a go at using my Millbank bag.
I let it soak for about 10-15 minutes...
Then we tied it to a tree and let it do its work...
The Millbank bag was definitely easier but the water from it wasn't as bright as from the Katadyn.
We boiled all the water and set about preparing dinner: Pigeon in redcurrant sauce with mushroom risotto and pasta.
I slept well the first night, but was very warm so left my sleeping bag completely unzipped.
The temp dropped to 4.6ºC overnight according to the little weather station we had. I did put down a reflective windscreen thing before putting the XTherm mat on top, whether it made any difference or not I don't know, but it was warm!
Breakfast was fresh coffee (thanks to those plunger cups that one of us bought along) and damper bread...
We pottered around for the day, tried out different methods of firelighting, looked at the plant-life, had a few coffees etc.
One of our party makes walking sticks, so he showed how to straighten and curve sticks over the fire using damp paper towel.
The plan was to smoke the trout for lunch but none of us was hungry - I'd definitely take less food next time, so much so that the evening's planned beef stew and mash felt too much so we just skewered the beef onto some de-barked hazel and kebabed them.
A couple of nips from various hip-flasks and we all headed to our tents for an early night (maybe due to the darkness, maybe due to the whisky from the day before).
An owl hooting woke me up a few times (excellent), but no more than being warm woke me up. It was very warm, uncomfortably so, so I opened the sleeping bag again and ditched the bivi bag, using it only as a groundsheet. It was irritating, but at least I know that I'm not on the edge of the temp zone for my sleeping gear. I'd rather be able to open the bag to cool down than to have a different bag and be cold without being able to do anything about it. Although I did keep wondering if I could have got away with my Softie 9 Hawk bag.
In the morning I was surprised to see that the second night was colder than the first... 0.9ºC
A quick coffee and a tidy up then we headed home via Leigh Delamare services for a monster breakfast. The kit is all clean again now and ready for the next one.
On the subject of cleaning, I'm planning on taking a good metal scourer or some wire wool next time to clean the inside of the billy can as the single bit of green scourer stuff wasn't up to doing all of our kit.
I'd definitely take less food. Probably we'll each take our own food next time. I also considered charging my camera and phone from my CPAP battery, but I'd hate to find that I was without my CPAP for a night because I'd drained it charging things.
I'd really appreciate any tips, or comments re kit, setup etc.
Thanks for reading.
My first trip there taught me a lot about what kit to take (because I didn't take the right stuff and ended up cold, miserable and bailed out after one night!) and so after a year or so of going out to various places and being comfortable I wanted to go back and do things properly.
My first trip out: http://hotchpotchblog.wordpress.com/2012/12/31/wild-camping-with-cpap/
The kit I took this time:
Sleep
Snugpak Softie Elite 5 Sleeping Bag
Bivi Bag
Small travel pillow (absolutely pointless and ended up using my coat)
Thermorest XTherm sleeping mat
Shelter
DD 3x3 Brown Tarp (with extra pegs)
IPK sheet
Two trekking poles
Cooking
Stainless steel bottle (Pathfinder)
Stainless steel mug (Pathfinder)
14cm Billy Can
Hexi Stove (for the first coffee of the morning)
Lid from a can of potatoes to act as a lid for the mug
Clothing
Thermal base layer
Craghopper winter lined trousers
Couple of T-shirts
Wool jumper
Coat (nothing special)
Folding poncho (to go over everything if needed)
Wellies
Spare socks
Clean shirt
Sharps
Gerber Combo Axe
Mora Robust (didn't use)
Neck knife
Folding saw
Folding trowel
Water
Katadyn Mini
Millbank type bag
Purification tablets (boiled, so didn't use, but like to have them)
Bits and Pieces
First Aid Kit (adapted) (larger kit in the car)
Alcohol hand gel
Wash kit
Head Torch and Spare Batteries
Tarred Twine
Plant ID book
Printed OS Map of the surrounding area
Camera
"Comfort" Bottle
Fire
Spark Stick
Fire piston
Charcloth in a tin
Lighter
Couple of sticks of fatwood
Tinder Card
Fire Biscuits
Twine
Snacks
Coffee
Chocolate bars
Porridge
Orange fizzy vitamin C tablets (nice to flavour some water with too)
Peanuts
Home made biltong
Mug shots
Hip flask
Red Wine carton
...and my CPAP kit.
That's pretty much it for my kit, unless I've forgotten something.
We took communal food along:
Flour
Diced Beef (frozen)
Pigeon Breasts (frozen)
Redcurrant Jelly
Mushrooms
Instant Mushroom Risotto
Porridge
Rainbow Trout
Stew pack of vegetables
Small tubs of honey
The approach to the railway line:
The river:
I don't remember part of the path down by the river having stones on it, so maybe they'd been put there since to help with the bogginess of the path.
We found a spot and set up camp. I went for the same tarptent setup as I did when I camped out last month in Sussex.
Some damp firewood let everyone know where we were.
There was plenty of space inside and I wasn't too shut off from seeing the outside world... not a bad night time view...
The moon was bright and lit up our little clearing.
This time there was plenty of condensation on the inside of my setup both mornings and I managed to shift in the night so that I was breathing right up against the wall so it ended up dripping down on me.
I think that next time I use that configuration I'll sleep lengthways in the tarptent, rather than widthways, with my head near the door.
Each night I was visited by a slug! I helpfully moved it on its way back into the open and it repaid this kindness by sliming my tarp!
We had enough bottled water for a day, so filtered and boiled some of the water from the river.
I used the Katadyn Mini which is nice and light and produced clear water, but took a while to fill two 14cm Billy Cans.
Then I had a go at using my Millbank bag.
I let it soak for about 10-15 minutes...
Then we tied it to a tree and let it do its work...
The Millbank bag was definitely easier but the water from it wasn't as bright as from the Katadyn.
We boiled all the water and set about preparing dinner: Pigeon in redcurrant sauce with mushroom risotto and pasta.
I slept well the first night, but was very warm so left my sleeping bag completely unzipped.
The temp dropped to 4.6ºC overnight according to the little weather station we had. I did put down a reflective windscreen thing before putting the XTherm mat on top, whether it made any difference or not I don't know, but it was warm!
Breakfast was fresh coffee (thanks to those plunger cups that one of us bought along) and damper bread...
We pottered around for the day, tried out different methods of firelighting, looked at the plant-life, had a few coffees etc.
One of our party makes walking sticks, so he showed how to straighten and curve sticks over the fire using damp paper towel.
The plan was to smoke the trout for lunch but none of us was hungry - I'd definitely take less food next time, so much so that the evening's planned beef stew and mash felt too much so we just skewered the beef onto some de-barked hazel and kebabed them.
A couple of nips from various hip-flasks and we all headed to our tents for an early night (maybe due to the darkness, maybe due to the whisky from the day before).
An owl hooting woke me up a few times (excellent), but no more than being warm woke me up. It was very warm, uncomfortably so, so I opened the sleeping bag again and ditched the bivi bag, using it only as a groundsheet. It was irritating, but at least I know that I'm not on the edge of the temp zone for my sleeping gear. I'd rather be able to open the bag to cool down than to have a different bag and be cold without being able to do anything about it. Although I did keep wondering if I could have got away with my Softie 9 Hawk bag.
In the morning I was surprised to see that the second night was colder than the first... 0.9ºC
A quick coffee and a tidy up then we headed home via Leigh Delamare services for a monster breakfast. The kit is all clean again now and ready for the next one.
On the subject of cleaning, I'm planning on taking a good metal scourer or some wire wool next time to clean the inside of the billy can as the single bit of green scourer stuff wasn't up to doing all of our kit.
I'd definitely take less food. Probably we'll each take our own food next time. I also considered charging my camera and phone from my CPAP battery, but I'd hate to find that I was without my CPAP for a night because I'd drained it charging things.
I'd really appreciate any tips, or comments re kit, setup etc.
Thanks for reading.
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