This is the first Wild Camping trip for over a year now since my hiking buddy damaged his Knees and I became a dad!
I'm hoping to start hiking and wild camping again on a more regular basis and plan to blog my adventures. As you can see above I have recently discovered Social Hiking and will be utilising it for my blogs also.
Haweswater 20th April 2013
Peaks Bagged
This trip began in fabulous weather. A little windy but it was clear we needed to find a sheltered spot for the evenings wild camp.
We arrived at the Haweswater carpark at Mardale at apx 9:30 am as I wanted to get a official parking spot. Luckily we got the last one. The downside of such an early start is that we had apx 11 hours to fill until it was time to pitch camp (an easy task in these stunning surroundings).
As you can see from the map and photos we left our packs in the Bongo and hiked to Small water, over to Blea water and then to the hotel for afternoon tea.
We returned to grab our kit hiking along Haweswater and cut North East onto Bampton Common and the Highstreet. By this point our new member was shattered and could hike no further. We had planned to camp on the picturesque long stile, however we were a long way off. I knew from the forecast that the winds would be 30-40mph gusts from the SW so we managed to camp behind a wall that sheltered us from the worst.
This was the first time my Terra Nova Laser Comp has been tested in the wind. I knew from other peoples experiences that they can flap a lot and be noisy. Luckily I had my ear plugs but they didn't stop the tent fro smacking me in the face a few times during the night.
My friend James had brought his New Big Agnes UL 1 which I was very impressed with. I went for a pee a couple of times in the night and noticed it was hardly moving at all. It seemed very solid.
My home made Meth Stove seemed very inefficient. Failing to boil my water after 30 minutes. While Tom's Caldera cone/Fosters can set up boiled in 3 minutes. Back to the drawing board. I think the flame was being blown around too much and the pot was too close to the flame. More experiments needed.
Sunday morning has to be the worst conditions I have ever hiked in. It had forecast winds up to 40mph on the tops but the winds we experience were nearly blowing us over and it was snowing, again not in the forecast I read. Visibility was terrible. I must admit I was scared. Luckily I have kept up with my compass skills and I manage to get us off the mountain.
We all experienced complete failures of our waterproof jackets and trousers. Should we expect our waterproofs to fail in such driving wet conditions? What are other peoples experiences?
I forgot to take my camera, however James took his and can be found here, more to follow.
