OMM 2023 – North Wales – Overnight Camp

After a long day in the hills we rocked up at the OMM campsite a little later than expected. It had been a little damp on the tops of the hills but down in the valley it was still dry so we soon had the tent up, sleeping mats inflated, warm clothes on and some water boiling.

As with everything else, the campsite was very well organised. It was the perfect size for the number of people staying here. I think there were around 1800 entered into the OMM altogether. There were marshalls keeping everything running smoothly, there was water available to refill our bottles and cook with and plenty of portaloos – they were also some of the cleanest portaloos you’ve ever seen which was nice.

One of the extras Mike had packed was a lightweight groundsheet. This was actually a godsend as we were able to sit on it outside of the tent in order to cook and chill for a while. The two cans of beer that he had carried all day long went down nicely too.

If we had got into camp earlier I think I would have had one of my dehydrated meals followed by another later in the evening. As it was we were eating around 5pm so I just had the one, followed by some hot chocolate. It then started raining and got dark so we retired to the tent where we chatted for a while before getting an early night.

I told Mike that I might try to snooze for a while and he said “You’d better put your earplugs in because I snore like a trooper” I replied saying that “it wouldn’t matter as I was unlikely to actually get any sleep anyway because I never sleep”, but before I’d finished my sentence, sure enough he was snoring away!!! How do people do that? It takes me hours to get to sleep.

Tonight, as predicted I didn’t sleep at all. Mike’s snoring wasn’t too bad. It was fairly quiet and not annoying like some snoring can be. It also poured with rain and was blowing a hoolie all night long so the noise of that competed with the snoring and I got no sleep at all. I was therefore awake when an airhorn sounded a few times from the Marquee and then some bagpipes started up. I guess it was time to get out of the tent ready to prepare for Day 2.

Thankfully it had stopped raining about an hour before and the strong winds had dried the tent. The field was pretty muddy underfoot so we packed the tent away while the going was good, ate breakfast sat on Mike’s groundsheet and then packed our bags for another day in the hills.

Before we had seen the map we didn’t really know what was in store but Mike was still suffering a little from Day 1 and his ankle, knee and hip were sore from his fall. Our plan therefore, if it was possible, was to stay relatively low and take the most direct route back to the finish line picking off the low-hanging fruit checkpoints as we went. We also wanted to start early so that we weren’t back too late.

We checked the start times, asked what the earliest we could start was and were ready for our 8am slot with half an hour to spare.

As with everything at the OMM, we just can’t emphasise enough how well organised it all was.

I don’t have many photos by the way because my phone had been accidentally recording lots of video footage of the inside of my rucksack pocket all day on Day 1. Thanks to this it had very little charge left when I got to camp so I turned it off in case it was needed in an emergency and couldn’t really take any more photos. Mike did take plenty though so I’ll get hold of those soon.

Tags: OMM