Sunday 7 November 2010

Wild Camp, Wild Weather




After a week of dreich weather the forecast suggested there might be a short window in the storms with an afternoon mostly free of clouds followed by a frosty night. Not having been camping since my return from the Pacific Northwest Trail a month ago I was keen to spend a night in the wilds and this seemed a good opportunity. For my first wild camp back in the Highlands I wanted to be somewhere special. The image that came immediately to mind was that of the magnificent cliff-ringed bowl at the head of Loch Avon in the Cairngorms so it was there I would go.

I set off in drizzle with the hills draped in thick mist hoping the forecast was accurate. Soon I was in the clouds but being on familiar ground I didn’t need map or compass. The ground was sodden from recent rain and the burns were racing down the hillsides. A steep, rough, eroded path led down out of Coire Domhain and out of the mist. Below me boulder-strewn slopes stretched out to long Loch Avon. The Feith Buidhe and Garbh Uisge burns roared down the ragged hillside between the big cliffs to merge into a whitewater stream that raced through the little meadows and heathery knolls of the corrie floor to the loch.

Down by the stream I sought a dry camp site but everywhere flat oozed water at every step. Choosing the least squelchy spot I could find I pitched the tent. Thin but wetting drizzle filled the air. Soon I was inside and dry and warm in thick clothing and sleeping bag with water heating on the stove for a mug of hot chocolate. The temperature was +4ºC. Heavier rain and an increasingly gusty wind kept me in the tent reading all evening. So far the weather forecast was looking badly wrong.

During the night I was woken several times by blasts of wind shaking the tent and by drips of condensation shaken off the fabric onto my face. At 4.30 a.m. I noticed that the ground round the edge of the tent porch was white. The rain had turned to snow. The wind was also waning and I didn’t wake again until 7.30, when the eastern sky was glowing with the dawn and there were stars high above. Only a few thin clouds remained. A light splattering of wet snow covered the ground, the edges of the tent were frozen and there was ice in my water bottles. The temperature was -1ºC and the air was crisp instead of soggy. Watching the wild landscape come to life as the light strengthened was the highlight of this short trip, the time when I was glad to be out there, glad to be a witness to a new day in the mountains. By the time I left, after a few hours of scenery watching and photography, the sky was clouding over and the brightness had died away. The break in the stormy weather had arrived in the early hours of the morning and was slipping away by midday. By the time I had climbed back up to the Cairngorm Plateau I was in clouds again. By early afternoon the rain had returned – and I was in a café in Aviemore looking out at the busy streets.

Photo Info: Early morning at the camp in the Loch Avon basin. Sony NEX-5, Sony 18-55 lens@22mm, 1/125@f8, ISO 250, raw file processed in Lightroom 3.

17 comments:

  1. NEX-5 RAW files capture so much detail. Terrific photo and a great test for the Lighthouse tent you had there. Well it looks like the Gram Counter tent. I expect you will soon be on your skies again touring the tops. Winter seems to be taking its icy grip.

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  2. Martin, yes that is the Gram Counter tent and it was fairly severely tested.
    The forecast is for blizzards with winds up to 90mph and heavy snow above 550 metres for the next two days so I could well be getting my skis out soon.
    The NEX 5 has noticeable better dynamic range than the Canon 450D.

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  3. Glad you enjoyed your wild camping trip.
    How do you pack away a frozen tent?
    Tony

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  4. Shake off as much ice as possible and stuff it into the pack!

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  5. Ask a stupid question ;-)
    I was expecting it to be frozen solid and bend, fold or crack :-)
    Can you tell I have never camped in the cold ;-) or at all! Now where's that hot water bottle!
    Cheers.
    Tony

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  6. Great read Chris and stunning photo, can't believe how sharp the detail is in it! I was in Australia for three weeks recently but coming back and going walking in the Lakes at weekend I knew I was back where I belonged, I'm guessing you may have felt a little like that too?

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  7. I think watching the birth of a new day being played out on the mountain sides is my most favourite part of short trips like this too. Evocative post Chris, thank you for sharing.

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  8. It's nice to see a Litehouse Solo in action. I was considering this tent myself.

    How did you get on with not having a bathtub floor in the wet conditions?

    I see that you were using side tie-outs. Was that with gripclips? I wondered how much danger there was of tearing the fabric using those.

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  9. Hi Chris,

    This trip report resonates with my own experience up Glen Doll this weekend. Other than the placenames you mention, it sounds like exactly the same trip...

    cheers,

    Fraser

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  10. Keith, the flat groundsheet was okay though I had to be careful not to push gear onto the low angled mesh panels on each side. I'd prefer a tray groundsheet. The gripclips were fine too and the side guys made a big difference. I don't think there's any risk of tearing the fabric.

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  11. great reading!.
    i made a point of getting over to snowdonia for a high camp at the weekend.
    had a sleepless snowy night in my bivvy, but the perfect 2 or 3 mins of sky burning sunrise made it all worthwhile!.

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  12. Great photo that, Chris.

    Good wee tent, eh? I've not used the gripclips on mine yet.

    I note you still suffered condensation splattering onto you in high winds. The side guys make that much of a difference?

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  13. If anything the side guys made likelihood of condensation dripping slightly worse! By flattening the top of the tent they meant that drops were less likely to run down the walls. However they did reduce flapping and gave more room inside.

    Given that I was camped on sodden ground and the humidity was 100% I think condensation was unavoidable and would have been as bad or worse in any other single skin shelter, including a tarp.

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  14. Would you normally have prefered the Ako Hilleberg tend? Sorry 'bout the spelling lol.

    Off to the wilds of Cheddar today.

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  15. Tony, for British conditions a double-skin tent handles condensation better than a single-skin but weighs more. I was comfortable in the Litehouse but over several days of damp weather the condensation could have been more of a problem. There would have been condensation in the Akto or any other nylon tent but the inner would have given me more protection against it. Even a mesh inner makes a difference as I found out using the GoLite Shangri-La 1 on the Pacific Northwest Trail - I took the Nest mesh inner to deal with bugs but used it during the wet weather to protect against condensation and because it has a tray groundsheet.

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  16. Interesting tent, I like the model. Also interesting about the side guys. Looking closely at your photo it seems they connect so high on the sides as to create a 'flat' roof instead of helping to maintain the 'tent' shape and keep it from billowing spinnaker shape in a side wind. Or was the flat roof a consequence of a not too taut ridgeline?
    I'd appreciate your thoughts on this, Chris.

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  17. Jorgen, you can attach the side guys anywhere. I found high up was best for maximum inner space and stopping the wind pushing the sides inwards. Lower down would be better for snow and allowing condensation to run down the walls - though I think condensation would have flicked on me anyway.

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