Ever wondered just how much adventure you could enjoy?

Lots of people like the idea of adventuring, but are a bit unsure of their ability to cope - whether that be fitness, equipment or any of the little doubts we all sometimes suffer from…

Well, I’ve just got back from the Brecon Beacons National Park where one very happy customer, Matt, has just spent 4 days with us discovering exactly how to escape the office! Here’s a picture of him watching the last rays from over 2000 feet on a high mountain ridge where we spent our second night bivvying.

 

Bivvying is the act of sleeping out without a tent or shelter, other than simple equipment such as a basha or bivvy bag (basically a body-bag made from breathable goretex), so the experience of being close to nature is second to none!

When it rains, you really feel grateful for that thin piece of fabric, and you learn quickly how to operate without moving around too much. Far from being uncomfortable, many people absolutely relish the experience, and discovering just how self-reliant they really can be.

There’s an old Army saying that ‘any fool can be uncomfortable’ and we take great pleasure in teaching our customers all the little ‘tricks of the trade’ so they can enjoy these wonderful outdoor experiences whilst keeping warm and dry (well most of the time anyway!)

If you want to give it a go for yourself then you can buy a basha, 5 or 6 bungees, a few tent pegs and a bit of para cord and away you go - trial and error is a great way to learn - keep it realistic and you should have  lot of fun! Of course we would be more than happy to fast-track you towards bivvy ninja-ness on one of our courses, and who knows, you could find yourself watching the sun set from a mountain top, a million miles from anywhere!

Details:

For those who are interested in the technical details of bivvying, this one was quite interesting in that we had effectively one sleeping above and one, below ground. Matt was using a Terra Nova single hooped bivvy of Flo-goretex, obviously above ground, whilst Duncan was inhabiting a shallow sink-hole with a standard British Army basha stretched horizontally across it.

What made this interesing was the relative advantages/ disadvantages of these approaches. Above ground bivvy tent - dry (ie not somewhere that will flood), easy but exposed to wind and somwhat restrictive vs. sink hole could (will) flood in heavy rain, acts as a cold air trap, but completely out of the wind and much more room to move around in.

So what was the result of the experiment? Below ground seemed to be the winner as Duncan (&Neb) reported being warm all night (this despite the aforementioned cold air issue) whereas Matt reported being cooler than comfortable.

Inconclusive? Yes, clearly this is no basis for making decisions about kit, but interesting nontheless. Which would I choose if forced to decide? Pure guaranteed survival purposes, take the bivvy tent - get in and stay in! For all round fun, flexibility and developing skills, go with the basha (but be ready for potential consequences)!

Sleeping on a mountain top - it’s the way to go..

Tags: basha, bivouac, bivvi, bivvy, gore-tex, goretex, north ridge, northridgeadventure

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 26th, 2009 at 8:26 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.