Fancy a nice and relaxing holiday this winter? Try camping!
BEING woken up by frost pinching your toes might not be everyone’s idea of an ideal weekend getaway but Ireland’s beauty spots are seeing increasing numbers of campers in winter.
Camping is typically popular in the summer when a lightweight sleeping bag and tent might be all you need to survive. But more and more, camping fanatics are making it a year-round activity, in spite of plummeting temperatures.
They say battling freezing-cold conditions and rain is worth it for the solitude and beauty.
For Oran Doyle, a Scout leader from Dublin, winter is the best time of the year to camp because he can enjoy the peace and quiet without the ‘gangs of younger folk going out, having beers and using temporary, cheap tents and leaving them behind’.
He started camping around a year-and-a-half ago and has had his fair share of ice-cold nights in the wilderness already.
The most chilling temperature he has braved was -8C during a trip last January in Wicklow, when even the tent froze.
‘It was so cold that the inside of the outer tent was frozen and even in the inner tent, my breathing was becoming ice when it was touching the inner,’ Oran told the Irish Mail on Sunday.
One of Oran’s main priorities when out camping is safety, and he chooses spots to pitch up in that are accessible to everyone. He said: ‘I’ve got to think about my own safety but I’ve also got to think about the safety of people who might have to come and help me.’
Oran lives on the doorstep of the
Wicklow Mountains and said it’s his favourite place to explore and camp. Wicklow Mountains National Park sprawls across almost 23,000 hectares and allows wilderness camping as long as campers follow what is known as the ‘Wild Camping Code’.
Tent sales soared during the pandemic as people increasingly took to the outdoors and it seems that some of that interest has held.
Winter campers lug layers of clothes, waterproofs and a tent, all just to secure the best, most secluded spot in nature.
A glass of whiskey by a crackling camp fire and ‘freedom and solitude’ are what bring Colin Wilson out in ‘rain sleet or snow’ rather than staying at home on his sofa.
He’s had a few hair-raising experiences, including being spooked while camping in Co. Kerry when he heard screams outside his tent which he described as ‘like an old woman screaming’.
The temperature had dropped to -1C degrees and the questionable noises made peeking outside the tent even more undesirable.
He was pitched up in a tepee with a wood-burning stove inside.
‘The last few logs were crackling away. Everything was silent and we heard this sniffing around the tent,’ he told the MoS.
After unzipping the tent and grabbing a head torch, what Colin discovered outside was not a ghoul, a beast nor a screaming elderly woman.
‘We were visited in the middle of the night, not by some demonic spirit but by a wild mountain goat,’ he recalled.
Regarding the gear needed for camping in winter, there’s a range of branded options on the market at varying prices but Colin said a
lot of campers choose ex-army surplus gear instead, which does the job just as well for a fraction of the price.
‘There’s no such thing as bad weather – there’s just the wrong gear. If you have the right equipment, you can go out in all temperatures,’ Colin said.
Around 70% of Irish households are planning a winter break this year, according to a survey by Multitrip.com. But more than half plan to go to the sun, rather than the chilly Wicklow mountains.
But Philip Keatley said the ‘therapeutic’ nature of the creeping frost and a good night’s sleep away from the children are what draw him to continue camping into the winter months.
The Dubliner told the MoS: ‘In the winter months it’s nice when you wake up in the mornings and there’s frost outside. There’s just something really therapeutic about it.’
As for where they pitch their tents, few are willing to tell, because discovering a stunning, private spot is difficult and once found it is kept a secret.
Philip went camping in Wicklow last weekend to try out his new tent and temperatures dropped before he even managed to sleep.
‘But since having kids it was probably the best eight hours of sleep of my life,’ he said.
To stay warm in freezing temperatures, Philip recommends packing warm clothes to change into after a day of hiking.
‘It’s best if you don’t wear the same clothes you hiked in, just simply because you could be dirty or damp,’ he said.
Some of Ireland’s wettest months are December and January meaning the winter campers make staying dry a top priority.
Despite the bleak weather, Mark Harris camps during the winter because he enjoys the ‘challenge’ and seeing how the scenery in Ireland transforms during the colder seasons.
He told the MoS: ‘There’s much more dramatic landscape and there’s ice and mist.’
A trip to Glencree, Co. Wicklow, in March last year left Mark battling a chilly -5C, and a friend he camped with couldn’t sleep because he was so cold.
‘He had to keep walking to keep off the hypothermia,’ Mark said.
The Dubliner said that sleeping mats with a high thermal resistance value are essential to keeping the frost away. He shared his best advice for keeping warm: ‘Fire warms you three times – going to find the wood, then cutting and processing the wood, then burning the wood.’
‘People think it’s romantic and all but it’s not. You’re fighting to stay warm,’ he added.
Mark has a YouTube channel (WildCampingIreland) where he posts videos from his camping adventures and tips for surviving the wilderness.
‘My breathing was becoming ice’
‘There’s no such thing as bad weather’