Close your eyes for a while. Now open them and imagine a billion stars dotting themselves on your retinas. Only bivvying out in the hills can give you such moments, says Tom Bailey.

PICK YOUR NIGHT. That one piece of advice makes a huge difference. A dry, clear, calm night – it doesn’t even have to be warm. I’ve bivvied in the winter before. Otherwise, if the weather’s not perfect, there’s no point. One-person tents are really small, so you may as well wild camp and be warm and dry. Get it right though and you will feel like you, and you alone, have really slept out in the mountains. There’s a purity to a night in a bivvy.

Kit wise, it’s simple: you’ll need a bivvy bag (I only consider a bivvy without hooped poles to be a bivvy; your face should be open to the stars), sleeping mat, sleeping bag, stove, food, warm layers and a head torch. Make sure, when you rock up at your chosen spot (that’s the other advantage with bivvying – they can fit into tiny areas, even a small tent won’t), you anchor the bivvy to the ground. They blow away really easily. If you get up in the night for a wee, take a torch as there’s no outline of a tent to help navigate you back to your night’s abode. I lay my rucksack at the top of my head just to stop anyone treading on my face, and put my boots upside down out of the bag, close against it.

Sleep. Well, it’s more of an abstract thought than an actual thing. Be prepared not to sleep very much. I haven’t a problem with this as I’m grumpy anyway, so no one will know any difference. Also, the whole point is you’re spending the night out and I mean ‘out’ for a reason. If you wanted just good sleep, you’d stay home.

When you bivvy, you’re not sleeping very heavily. And it’s in those half-awake turning overs that you’ll glimpse it; the sky, sometimes so bright with moonlight you can read by it. Other times you’ll listen to grass stems swaying in the breeze, but most of all, you’ll track the progress of the night.

Climbing a mountain and laying on it all night, seems sacrificial. Luckily, sleep is all the Gods will take from you.

A stove

I love to drink endless fruit teas and hot chocolates during the evening. Modern stoves are small and fast to boil water. This all means I may have to take plenty of water, if there’s none nearby. Walking poles

Other than helping while carrying a heavier pack, poles can anchor down the bivvy at the head end. This stops it blowing away and helps anyone who might be night walking to see you.

The bivvy bag

I like the simplicity (and price) of a bag, and they can be re-proofed just like a jacket if they start to leak. Make sure it’s big enough for you, your mat and sleeping bag and to turn

over in.