I'd no excuse really and some enthusiastic BAM newbies on the Bear Bones forum provided motivation to get out there and get bivvying. I was also looking for something to do instead of a day's skiing, kyboshed by a very poor weather forecast. It's been sunny and cold all week with great snow cover so I was somewhat miffed when the weather forecast indicated rising temps and low cloud across Scotland for the weekend. Given I would be ski touring on my own, this looked like a recipe for skiing off a cornice, never to be seen again. Also no views! Locally it looked like the cold would last until the early hours of Saturday morning so I figured I should get BAM 2023 underway!
I nearly didn't thanks to a monumental faff session getting my gear together after a day in my home office of frustration and crisis. Eventually I was ready but this wiped out any thought of going too far so I headed for my 'usual' spot in the woods above Dunning Glen. As expected it was still pretty chilly and the trails still frozen solid. Above Muckhart there was a dusting of snow and climbing up from the Dunning road, it increased to around a couple of inches.
Alarmingly the temperature was -5, about 3 degrees colder than what was forecast. I'd debated on what sleeping bag to take and went with the Thermorest quilt on this forecast. -5 would be a bit marginal for it although it had been fine (just) when it got down to -6 on the morning of my March bivvy last year...
Anyway, I arrived, pitched up in double quick time (no faff!) and got in. The soto was fired up without a fireball this time and I made tea (i.e. boiled water and added it to a bowl of freeze dried vege curry with added smoked sausage) and settled in to my routine of reading and sipping a beer or three. It was indeed quite cold, necessitating me to hide under the quilt and keep my gloves on. But I was warm enough and after a final dram of whisky, crashed out, the sound of owls all around.
Later that night I woke and noted it was a bit cool underneath me but when I next woke it was clear the forecasted temp rise was in progress as I was nearly too warm! I got a shock glancing at my watch on finally waking to see it was 10am. I always have a long sleep at this spot, probably as it's level, dry and sheltered; and so far has escaped anyone else's attention. They were meant to be felling this wood last year but so far it hasn't happened yet. If it does it will be a real shame as I've not found any other spot nearby quite as good.
I hope to do as many flat tarp bivvies as possible this year. I'm still honing my technique and as this will be my chosen shelter for the Highland Trail I need more practice. Guess I'll continue with Bam then!
Home was via a similar route to last October, scoping out a few more woodland retreats on the way. The snow and ground were softening as I rode, so we will soon be back to clag world. I've made good use of this cold snap though so I'm quite happy. Here's to the next one!
