Wildcamp at Skelton tower Northyorkshire. Friday 26th may 17.

[Big G]

Me and Alan, bopdude on here, went for a wildcamp at Skelton tower Northyorkshire. I set out to pick Al up from his house and with this mini heat wave were having, we were expecting a hot 2 mile hike in. We parked the car near the pub in Levisham, and had a couple of pints to cool down, then packs on for a 2 mile hike in.

I was testing out a new Osprey pack i've just bought a atmos ag 65l. We arrived at the tower a stunning location for a wildcamp, with flat areas on each side of the tower ideal for pitching a couple of tents. We chilled out for a while and had a well earned drink, i'd brought 4 cans of lidi's best lager lol, and Al to my suprise and delight had brought a full bottle of sloe gin decanted into a P58 bottle. The munchies had kicked in lol, we had already planned i'd cook our tea and Al would cook brekie the next morning. We decided to set up the kitchen inside the tower as the wind had picked up. I got on with cooking tea fillet steaks, mushrooms and tomatoes, cooked on my trangia 27 with gas burner on a griddle pan Al had brought.

Time was getting on now so we decided to pitch the tents, i brought my Exped mira 2 inner and army basher which proved a bad choice, i'll explain later as to why. Al had brought his DD 3X3 ultra light tarp and DD superlight hammock which he strung up inside the tower earlier, i think he could be the first to try it. He configured the tarp in to a nice tarp tent.

With the light fading it got decided chilly and i had decided not to bring my thermal wool long johns merino wool hat and softie jacket, well no jacket at all, which i sorely regretted later lol. While Al had brought all his plus his bivvy bag. As darkness fell and with a new moon phase the stars where shinning bright, we were visited by 2 star gazers around 1.30am with torch lights flashing outside the tent i woke Al up with lights flashing outside, i had strange thoughts of a ufo landing or i could of been the affects of the sloe gin and lager lol. One of the lads said he had seen the tents from a distance away and said to his mate there's people camping at the tower. They were out star gazing and taking photos, one of them was from Middlesbrough small world lol.

We decided it best if i kipped in Als tent as the wind had got up and it was decidedly chilly, my fault thinking it was gonna be a warm night. I won't make that mistake again lessons learned. I admit i was tad cold through the night with only bringing my costco down throw and kiping in my boxer shorts. While Al was snoring his head off and toasty in his merino thermals, softie jacket, sleeping bag and bivvy bag lol.

We rose about 7am got a brew on and Al cooked a tasty brekie of sausages, smokey bacon and mushrooms, served in tortilla wraps. They were that nice we had 2 each lol. The sun was blasing down and temps were risng so we struck camp loaded the packs up, cleaned up took all our rubbish out and headed out back to the car. We were glad our packs were around 8kg lighter each as we had a uphill climb ahead of us.

All in all a great camp, glorious weather, stunning location, delicious food & drink, great company

We are already planning our next one, until then thanks for reading.

Nearly forgot a few pics of the camp.

A link to my video on youtube, summits happened when i've uploaded it, it's all pix elated i may need to re edit and upload it again

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhdNIxa4VKs

 

[Silkhi]

Not at all far from me...I had no idea the tower existed despite having been to Levisham many a time. Looks a great spot and a good trip out too - thanks for sharing.

 

[Big G]

Not at all far from me...I had no idea the tower existed despite having been to Levisham many a time. Looks a great spot and a good trip out too - thanks for sharing.

Aye mate i had no idea it existed until i watched George's (buspasscamper) vid on youtube he camped there a few weeks ago. Its a few mile out of Levisham, through a few fields then you come down a hill. There's a few ways you can get to it, i think ours was the shortest route, going of the map. Stunning place for a wildcamp with nice level ground it pitch on.

Thanks for commenting

 

[bopdude]

As said, a good overnighter with a few surprises, the weather was great, sun blazing with a cool breeze, dangerous, as I was to find out last night, a mild dose of sun stroke I think, but that's a different story. The trip to Levisham was as expected, no great drama, my pack was waaaaaaay overweight for an overnighter but I was carrying about 5 litres of water on top of about 7kg of wet food and 'extra's' all in all just over 20kg on a hot day, ouch. The walk in was great, fantastic views and the destination didn't disappoint as seen in the pictures. The wind got up later on, so much so that as Gary said, in the interest of warmth he slept in my DD superlight tarp tent with me, he ain't a small lad but the tarp easily took both of us and room to spare. Once we turned in it got weird, Gary was dreaming, or so I thought, Al, Al, there's lights outside...................ok Gary, go back to sleep, NO, there are lights outside, well to our surprise there were 2 lads that had walked in at daft o'clock, I forget the exact job / hobby title but they were star gazers ( no disrespect to any star gazers here ) anyway we got chatting briefly and the pointed out this and that, the satellite we had seen early was due again, apparently it was the ISS, never seen that before and they also pointed out Jupitor iirc, so after that we left them to it, crawled back in the sack and off to the land of nod, good trip with a great lad.

 

[Big G]

As said, a good overnighter with a few surprises, the weather was great, sun blazing with a cool breeze, dangerous, as I was to find out last night, a mild dose of sun stroke I think, but that's a different story. The trip to Levisham was as expected, no great drama, my pack was waaaaaaay overweight for an overnighter but I was carrying about 5 litres of water on top of about 7kg of wet food and 'extra's' all in all just over 20kg on a hot day, ouch. The walk in was great, fantastic views and the destination didn't disappoint as seen in the pictures. The wind got up later on, so much so that as Gary said, in the interest of warmth he slept in my DD superlight tarp tent with me, he ain't a small lad but the tarp easily took both of us and room to spare. Once we turned in it got weird, Gary was dreaming, or so I thought, Al, Al, there's lights outside...................ok Gary, go back to sleep, NO, there are lights outside, well to our surprise there were 2 lads that had walked in at daft o'clock, I forget the exact job / hobby title but they were star gazers ( no disrespect to any star gazers here ) anyway we got chatting briefly and the pointed out this and that, the satellite we had seen early was due again, apparently it was the ISS, never seen that before and they also pointed out Jupitor iirc, so after that we left them to it, crawled back in the sack and off to the land of nod, good trip with a great lad.

Cheers Al, was a great camp mate Here's to our next one....

Just need to sort the vid out on youtube, i'll do i tomorrow.

Even some of the snapshots i've uploaded on here are f***ing pix elated

 

[Madriverrob]

Excellent trip report guys , sounds like a good un , we def need to get a North Yorkshire Coast / Teeside meet arranged .....

 

[Big G]

Excellent trip report guys , sounds like a good un , we def need to get a North Yorkshire Coast / Teeside meet arranged .....

Cheers Rob, your more than welcome mate

We need to get our Northeast group back, up and running. Get a few meets sorted out.

 

[bopdude]

Excellent trip report guys , sounds like a good un , we def need to get a North Yorkshire Coast / Teeside meet arranged .....

We will have to get something done this year, been coming for a couple of years already lol

A couple of pics

Home for the night



The ruins, has anyone got a history on this site

 

[Big G]

Al, i've just had another go at uploading the full vid on windows movie maker, and re editing it. But the pix elation still there, i think i'm gonna have to leave it as is mate.
It's a shame cos it's a decent vid, i'll have to maybe change the video resolution settings on the camera, and have a look up on the net for any solution's.