Bivvy Nights…

I don’t know what it is about March, but I always seem to be drawn to sleeping out.

Whether it’s the want to see the stars as clear as possible, the chance to be chilled to the bone or just because my time off always falls at the same time, around this point of the year I’m navigating up the side of a hill, by moonlight to find a great spot.

Last year’s bivvy nights.

This time, I had picked my ‘spec’ a long time in advance and I’m sure those of you that like the Dales will recognise it from the attached pics.

As a clue, I headed out of Ingleton in the Yorkshire Dales – one of the gems features in 50 Gems of the Yorkshire Dales – up one side of the waterfalls walk and then turned left when I reached the Roman Road. From there, you can work it out yourself.

I wanted to try to see how my Alpkit Hunka would cope under colder temperatures than my last trip, and I also felt like testing out my new Alpkit Brukit too.

Making my way up the hill to my nightspot I also had the opportunity to test out my night navigation skills, and scrambling at night.

It was that sort of trip.

I arrived at the ‘summit’ around half an hour later than I wanted to, but it was a perfect night to try out some night photography. After knocking out some shots and setting up a timelapse, I attempted to get some Adventure Food down me – a Vegetable Hotpot. It was anything but… yet it was edible and that was all that was important.

Getting into my Vango Ultralite it was a cold night, baltic, and I had a fair amount of frost around my site too. In fact, probably an inch. It was a restful night though; the stars illuminating the scene and allowing my brain to wander and rest… mostly without sleeping. I ‘slept’ by allowing my head to become those stars. Nature and human together. Amazing.

I woke up from my shivering slumber around 5am and took a moment to look around and take in the morning – the pink hue coming from over Ingleborough and the mist rolling up the valley.

I took as long as I could to pack up and then made my way back to Ingleton, via a couple of Geocaches and to my car.

Which had a flat tyre. Pump and run back home… where I then found I had another.

Wonder became wounder…