THE GOOD, THE BAD and the UNCOMFORTABLE
Ronald takes a look back at his 100 summit bivvies and picks out some of the best
I bought my first bivvy bag for fast, lightweight travel on trips like the Wainwright Coast-to-Coast across northern England. But straight away it became my preferred overnight accommodation – with the SYHA probably running in second place, and bothies and tents a long way behind.
I haven’t bothered to count the nights in woods, on moors, on sea cliffs, in the corner of a field. But the top bivvies are the ones on the summits. Every one of them is different. Taken from the first 100 summits, here’s a sample selection of the good, the bad and the uncomfortable.
1 SGURR NAN COIREACHAN May 1999 A royal night
When Bonnie Prince Charlie slept out on Sgurr nan Coireachan in 1746, he had a miserable night. The cloud was down, there was a thin drizzle – and never mind the Redcoats, he was being chewed to bits by the midges. Luckily, he had a plant-based remedy to hand: a nice bottle of whisky.
A little grassy groove runs across the summit, just the right size to lie down in, and a few centimetres below the overnight breeze. Surely the Bonnie Prince will have slept in it as well. The groove points just south of west, so just by opening one eye I was looking out across the Atlantic to the Isle of Rum and the distant Hebrides. The chilly breeze, just a few centimetres above me, made sure I opened my eye rather often.
For three hours the colours of the day danced behind the spiky island: silver, beige, grey and greyish purple, like a very, very slow disco show.
2 SCAFELL PIKE May 2015 Busy nightspot
Between 4pm, when they all trickle down towards the teashops, and 11am, when they finally arrive out of the car parks, you get the Lakeland summits to yourself. With one exception. Scafell Pike.
After a long walk in from the sea, I hit the high point of England at 6pm. I’d not expected a true summit sleepout to be possible; Scafell Pike is a stony, stony place. But 50 metres from the massive cairn, I came across a little mossy ledge, sheltered below a knee-high cliff, with a view down to England’s finest crag. The night was windless and warm. Wast Water was a silver hole below me, the whole of Lakeland made jagged shapes along the bottom of the starfield, and the nuclear installation at Sellafield was a spooky orange nightlight. What I hadn’t reckoned with was the overnight visitors.
Well, it’s exciting to arrive at Scafell
Pike at 4am, when you’ve already been on Ben Nevis and Snowdon is waiting for you ahead. A bit of shrieking and yelling is altogether called for. And your pals coming up behind, they’re equally excited about it...
Nobody, on Scafell Pike, thinks to worry about waking up the neighbours.
3 BEN LEDI March 2001 Ledi, steady, snow!
When we arrived it was already dark. We leaned on the trig pillar, enjoying the interaction of the silver moonlight with the sea of orange streetlights spread across the Scottish Lowlands.
The top of Ben Ledi is a fairly flat place. But there is one wide dip, at least a metre deep, and with luck the wind will flow over the top rather than down in and up again.
In the early hours the cloud rolled in. A pattering of rain on the bivvy bag is nature’s way of promising that the night air is about to get slightly less cold. Sometime before dawn, I shone my torch around our bivvy ground. The ground looked strangely ghostly and grey – maybe my battery was failing. There was also a slithery sound outside the nylon. Daybreak brought the explanation. We were bivvying in an inch of fresh, wet snow.
In a bivvy bag, it’s easy to shuffle round to have breakfast with your back to the wind. And my bag has one useful feature:
a zip across the cut-your-throat line. This opens into a super-size hood, allowing a square foot of dry lap to eat the morning muesli off. There was no lingering over breakfast. We stuffed muesli into mouths, damp sleeping stuff into rucksacks, and headed off over those other three Corbetts above Loch Katrine.
4 SNOWDON August 2003 Nighttime lightshow
Poor old William Wordsworth didn’t have a bivvy bag. So he had to head up the Llanberis Path in the dark to get the Snowdon sunrise. He made it, for a cloud inversion in the moonlight and what’s considered to be the most significant section of his most important poem, The Prelude.
Our way wasn’t actually any easier. On the hottest day of a hot summer, we’d crossed the Welsh 3000s southbound, got a bit lost on Crib y Ddysgl in the dregs of the daylight, and reached Snowdon summit at midnight.
A few metres down towards Y Lliwedd, a splendid gravel shelf was just right for unrolling the bivvy bags. But first we leant on the trig point and watched the lightshow. Moonlight, starlight, some streetlights along the distant coast. And one small spot of torchlight, somewhere in the middle of Crib y Ddysgl…
When the torchlight developed into cries for help, we fired up the mobile phone. “We’re on the summit of Snowdon, but this is important: please don’t rescue us, as we’re up here having fun…” And the next stage of the show, a red and yellow flashing helicopter in the cwm below us and a theatrical spotlight as they winched up the two unfortunate walkers.
But that wasn’t the end of the visual stimulation. Just as it had for Mr Wordsworth, dawn brought pink fluffy cloud rising around us like an early morning meringue. And as we started the new day, a Brocken spectre stalked beside us along the ridgeline of Y Lliwedd.
5 A’ CHRUACH December 2009 Moor frost
At 5pm in the middle of Rannoch Moor, the big question was: could I really go to sleep at 5pm? It was already dark, so I had to. After enjoying the dregs of the sunset reflected in Rannoch’s many waterways, I returned to a peat-bank I’d spotted just below the summit. It kept off the wind and, by cutting off half the night sky, it also kept away half of the cold.
My down-filled sleeping bag and foamcell mat kept me warm enough to sleep – some of the time. Whenever I switched on my torch, there was a bit more frost twinkling on the grass stems in front of my eyes. By midnight the frost was twinkling on my bivvy bag as well. I brought in the water bottle to stop it from freezing solid. Then I brought in my boots too.
Dawn was awkward. After a mug of cold muesli eaten in bed, I got up in the dark. But the exciting bit was getting my boots on, laced and tightened – before my fingers froze up altogether.
The reward came a quarter-hour later. A’ Chruach summit looked out across Rannoch Moor, and the sky went stripy in yellow and pink behind the distant cone of Schiehallion. Grass twinkled like tinsel, and mist floated like a skimpy nightdress across the surface of Loch Laidon.
6 SHILLHOPE LAW September 2019 Ancient ways
Shillhope Law is a small hill. But its 501 metres are perfectly placed in a curve of the Coquet Valley, one of the quietest corners of the Cheviots. And if the hill’s too small, just start from further away. I leave the car at Alwinton and walk a gentle day along Clennel Street. A warm evening sees me strolling up the grassy ridgeline, watching the evening light over half a hundred bumpy Cheviot hills.
The day turns hazy, and the sunset is a peaceful dream in pastel shades. The sun’s warmth lingers in the heather, and heather is the best bed there is. No need for a mat when you sleep on Shillhope Law. It smells nice as well.
Morning light is crisp and clear, sparkling in the river and painting the sides of Coquetdale in emerald green.
I roll up my bed and ramble down the ridgeline for a half-day wander by another ancient way called the Pass Peth and back along the valley.