Wild Camping with Morgan

by Alan Cole · Published Tuesday, August 6th, 2024 · Updated Tuesday, August 6th, 2024

Now that Morgan is home for a few months, we won’t be heading out to Canada to visit him. This means that we won’t be hiking along the Juan de Fuca Trail on Vancouver Island’s west coast either. A shame as I was looking forward to a few nights camping with the bears! It also means that the new tent I bought and got Morgan to take delivery of in Canada won’t be getting used either.

Time therefore for a new plan and a possible camping trip with Morgan somewhere in Europe instead. This is likely to be a little more mountainous and a little more remote than the Juan Fuca trail. So, rather than give Morgan his first taste of wild camping on a somewhat difficult, fairly committed trail we decided to head out into the local hills for a quick overnighter on Sunday.

Test Hike

It was a good opportunity to see how Morgan felt hiking and carrying a heavier pack, to test some kit for him and to try out the new tent. I didn’t expect the hiking with a heavy pack to be an issue, he is after all a fit, lean, 6-foot-tall, 19 year old these days. He should run rings around his somewhat podgy, heart-attack survivor, 53-year-old dad. However, I think that about most people but it’s not usually the case, so I thought I;d better check that he could cope with the exertions of walking up a hill with a backpack on.

We loaded up our bags, drove to Nant y Moch and set off into the hills under grey skies. I had a few camping spots I wanted to check out and had ideas for campsites later in the day if these didn’t work out. I also had a definite spot in my mind if the others weren’t suitable.

We tromped over the hills, snacking on blueberries as we went. We saw a few MX riders tearing up the countryside but soon left them behind and saw no one else. We started bush-whacking around Llyn Conach and stopped there for lunch. Once off the trail it was tough going through thick waist high vegetation and boggy ground. Over lunch we decided against continuing on through such ground and instead headed back to a path with the intention of either finding a different route to a summit or heading off somewhere else.

An Old Geocache

I knew there’d be no other easy option to the summit so we soon found ourselves at Anglers Retreat. I remembered hiding a geocache here back in 2007 so when I spotted its location we went to see if it was still there. Sure enough, it was!! It was a little difficult to extract as it was in a tree hollow and the tree had grown around it. We got it out though and took a look at the logbook which only had two finds in it – one from 2017 and the most recent one from 2020!

We returned it to its hiding hole and then explored around the cabin at Angler’s retreat before heading off around the lake to walk along the dam.

A Perfect Camp Spot

We were now looking for suitable camping spots as I’d identified some potential places not far from here on the map. We spotted a farmer watching us from the cow sheds at Angler’s Retreat as we crossed the dam, so would be looking for:

somewhere hidden,
somewhere with enough flat ground for two tents,
somewhere that wasn’t boggy
somewhere not too tussocky,
somewhere near to a water source,
somewhere away from any trails and
preferably somewhere sheltered from the wind.

From a map or satellite image almost everywhere in the hills looks suitable. Once on the ground though it is surprisingly difficult to find anywhere that will work!

We were soon off piste again, wading through bog and forging through waist to chest high vegetation. We came across one or two spots that were doable, but not perfect. The spot I had identified was in a bend in the stream so we continued on to that. Once we spotted it from above it looked likely that it would be boggy and would have too much high, tussocky vegetation but we climbed down the blueberry-covered bank anyway to get a closer look.

On closer inspection it looked good. There was enough flat ground, it was perfectly hidden from all directions, and also completely sheltered from the wind. The ground was dry and flat and there was a lovely burbling stream just a few feet away. There was also the added benefit of blueberries galore and the spot was sufficiently difficult to get to meaning that I didn’t expect to see anyone else in these parts.

We did take a Quick Look around the corner just in case there was anywhere even better just downstream a little – we didn’t want to start walking in the morning only to find camping nirvana in the first half hour!

Life at Camp

Suitably convinced that this was the best spot for us we returned and although it was only mid afternoon I deemed it remote and hidden enough to set up camp early.

We had my Nordisk Telemark tent to put up, my new Durston x-mid two tent that Morgan would be sleeping in to put up and a tarp to play with. We soon had them all set up and looking good. I’ll write a little review of the Durston soon, but first impressions were good. It’s certainly easy to erect and very roomy.

We washed off in the stream, collected and filtered water, packed away the tarp as it wasn’t really needed and watched the world (and lots of grasshoppers) go by.

We cooked dinner, made plans for tomorrow and played Dobble. It was a pretty quiet evening. We saw no one else, it was windy elsewhere but there was barely a gust making it into our campsite and despite the odd spot of rain in the air it remained dry. The only sign of a world outside of our little spot was when the air ambulance helicopter flew overhead. There was no mobile reception at all and my phone couldn’t even connect to satellites from here.

We went to bed around 10pm. I squeezed into my little Nordisk Tekemark 2.2LW tent whilst Morgan had the palatial Durston X-mid 2P. It was a quiet night with just some light rain to get everything wet. In the morning, as per usual, my tent was soaked through. I was dry inside of it but the flysheet was wet with rain on the outside, wet with condensation on the inside and the silnylon material seems to soak up moisture like a sponge. Morgan’s silpoly Durston on the other hand was wet from the rain on the outside but the inside of the fly was bone dry. There was no soaking up of water and no condensation.

We breakfasted on coffee, porridge and loads of foraged blueberries.

It was grey and drizzly this morning so there was no point waiting for things to dry out. We therefore packed the tents away wet making sure to leave no trace and set off once more with wet feet through the stream and the bog towards a more defined path.

After a little exploring and looking for other potential camping spots we started making our way along forest roads towards the car.

Back at home a shower was welcomed followed by a chilled afternoon. Morgan then treated us to ‘smash burgers’, a culinary skill he learned whilst in Canada. They were nice!!

It had been a successful overnighter. Now to find out if Morgan just ‘tolerated it’ to please his dad, or enjoyed it enough to want to do a 5 night challenging backpacking trip in the Balkans!