Explorer camping in midair
PERCHED in a tent hanging off a cliff, Phoebe Smith settles down for a good night’s sleep.
Most people would be too terrified to get any kip but the explorer xplorer is happy nodding off with her head ad in the clouds.
The thrill-seeker’s love ove of extreme camping has led to her enjoying a kip dangling from 330ft high h cliffs, 100ft cedar trees, football stadiums adiums and in polar bear country.
Phoebe said: “We sleep ep a third of our lives. We may as well make nights as adventurous as s the day.”
The 35-year-old’s addiction diction to the high life began in 2006 006 after a night under the stars tars on Australia’s Uluru, formerly Ayers Rock. Since then she has sought strange sleeping spots in Canada, the Arctic, New Zealand, and the Americas.
Freelance writer Phoebe said: “Before I slept on Ayers Rock the guide told me all the things that co could kill me.
“But I had the m most incredible night listening to bra branches creaking, the breeze an and owls and I wasn’t scared. It was amazing. “I felt fe I was connecting with the world. I made it my ambition to find mor more places to sleep out outdoors. I became ad addicted and I’ve nev never looked back.” She now sleeps better outside, away from the everyday stresses of life. She said: “The only thing on your mind when you’re outdoors is how to stay safe, its life and death.”
Perhaps her most daring feat was sleeping in polar bear territory on a glacier in Svalbard, near the North Pole.
She said: “The sound of grunting woke me. I thought I was going to have to get the gun from the guide but it was just him snoring.”
But Phoebe, from Snowdonia, Wales, insists her antics are safe because she is harnessed. She said: “I feel safe. Four ropes would have to simultaneously snap for me to fall but you have to be confident with climbing and rope skills.” Phoebe’s retired dad Brian, 70, was sceptical at first but was won over after Phoebe took him camping. Phoebe hopes her extreme sleeping will encourage women to explore.
She also aims to show not all explorers are “white men with a beard”.
She will be taking 45 under privileged children to Antarctica in a “plant trees, not flags”campaign.
Phoebe has also been raising money for homeless charity Centrepoint. She said: “We’re only two pay packets away from being homeless ourselves and we’re all human. We all have the right to somewhere safe and warm to sleep.”