Woodlife

Having had a bit of success with ‘tree-dwelling’ with hammock and tarp over the last couple of months, my attention has changed to sleeping on the ground. I’ve already practiced setting up the tarp as a bivvi with just a pole at the front as well as tying the ridge line to two trees. Both these systems seem to work okay, but probably only for sheltered areas.

To try this without a tarp cover is a different matter but I have given it a go in the back garden. The bivvi bag is the most essential item, and I bought an ex-British army one from ebay. (Didn’t have them in my day!) It was reasonably comfortable and in fact increases the temperature of the sleep system by a couple of degrees Celsius. The reindeer skin added to the ground insulation. It wasn’t entirely comfortable though, so I splashed out on a Thermarest. Quite an expensive item and probably the most money I’ve spent out on a single bushcraft item, but weighing up the pro and cons, I decided that at my age, I really can’t afford to get ill with back colds through lack of insulation.

The Pro-lite 3 version duly arrived and I was soon testing out in the garden with my ‘bedroll’. Putting the reindeer skin on top of the Thermarest was an added luxury, but it did in fact make the bedroll a little cumbersome and heavy. To pack this away in or on the rucksack caused a few problems but I persevered and packed up the skin in the bivvi bag to make a neat (and waterproof) pack to strap on the outside of the rucksack. The Thermarest packs up in its own stuff sack.

All in all the Thermarest is great. After a few minutes, the self-inflating system has blown up the mat to a reasonable thickness, and a couple of extra breaths completes it to ‘luxury’ level. It appears quite robust and by placing it inside the bivvi bag, it is even more protected. I can’t help thinking that if I was really wanting to save space and weight, the reindeer skin would have to go, but at the moment, it’s still on the kit list for ground and tree dwelling.

I’ve yet to test the system in the field, but during a moderately cold and windy night in the garden, I was very comfortable.

I’m certainly beginning to feel as though I’ve got quite a few options now for sleeping out, including of course the ability to build basic shelters from natural material which I will try out pretty soon.

More next time.