Camping in Heavy Rain - Campfire and Lake Views

Hi, welcome. It's absolutely pouring with rain. The plan for this trip is I'm heading up a valley up to a really small little mountain lake. I'm bringing a whole lot of stuff with me so that we can have a really nice cozy time. I've got some beautiful food to cook up and I've even packed in some wood. A winter camp needs a campfire and I've got some important channel information to share with you guys so we can catch up around the campfire for that. In the meantime I'll leave you guys with this beautiful weather and I'm going to head up the valley, find a place to camp and get some shelter up before I catch up with you again. Very soft. The more it rains the softer the ground gets and the further in I sink. Oh, I don't think you guys can really see me. I might have to slouch back. I'm still nursing this cup of tea but the sun has gone down. It just happened so quickly. You've noticed that the ground here is made up of two things. Rocks and moss and neither of those are good for pitching tents like for putting pegs in and neither of them are particularly good for sitting in one of these chairs because inevitably one of the legs is going to hit a rock and one of them is going to go like into a soggy piece of moss. This pitch was really tricky to get right. I stood around for ages, I fluffed about, I changed the tarp a few times and the problem is it's very little flat ground and anything flat accumulates water or is really rocky and then you put a tarp over the top of you. You can't have tree branches in the way. It's actually a really hard spot to pitch a tent and put a tarp but I have managed to find something that is working really well. About where I can put my firebox because I have brought a little fire pit and I'd love to have a fire tonight. It's just nothing quite like fire on a winter night to make dinner and a fire in the morning. So let's do that. We'll do a fire tomorrow morning. Wow, this is really good. Ah, I love cooking really nice food in the mountains. There's no reason why you shouldn't, especially if you're just going in for an overnighter. You saw what I had with me, just a small bag of ravioli, courgette, a little bit of onion, some fresh mozzarella, salt and pepper. It doesn't take up a lot of room. Let's look at the mozzarella. Wine without saying cheers. Cheers everyone. Thank you for coming with me on this trip. I hope you're enjoying it. My aim is for it to be relaxing. I've set my mat up and my sleeping bag. So I've got my Exped down mat which is amazing and it can be so comfortable, so warm. Highly recommend it. It's quite bulky but I think it's worth it. Get a great night's sleep. Okay, just watching the camera. Anyone who films in the outdoors in these conditions knows what I mean. When you see the wind start to blow, you just don't want your camera going for a tumble because it's a really expensive mistake. Put the camera away actually you guys. I'm going to enjoy my dinner and I think I actually might have a big day tomorrow. It does snow and it is forecast to snow. It's forecast to be five centimetres between 6am and 9am and then six centimetres between 9am and 12am. So it could be a big morning. So I think I'm going to get off to bed and I'll wake up tomorrow. Hopefully, fingers crossed, the next time you see me there'll be snow and if not it'll be up on the mountains. We'll get to enjoy it either way. Hi everybody. Well, it is snowing but not down here. It's cold though. I was umming and ahhing about lighting the fire. I wasn't really sure if I should given that it's such a tight spot in here with the trees but I'm just going to keep it small and under control and these trees are all really wet so it's fine. The firebox can be moved quite easily as well so if I'm concerned at all I can move it. I'll just stay close and keep a good eye on it. What an absolute dream. Lighting a fire with firewood we've brought in from home that's completely dry. This is talking cheese to my usual fire lighting experience. One of the reasons I wasn't going to light the fire was I thought oh it'll just take so long. The whole process of lighting the fire and dismantling it afterwards but this was so easy and I have got a thermonuclear strong coffee which I love when I'm in the mountains. What more could you want? Snow. I would love the snow. I would have loved it to snow right down here by the tent but I'm heading out in a couple of days and this is the start of three days of snow. I've got something really important to attend to back at home. It probably looks like this is really close to me from the angle you're on but I'm fine. So I've got something to attend to back at home so I can't stay on another night and wait for the snow but I'm going to head out in a couple of days with Indy and probably take the hot tent. Watch this space but the plan will be to take the hot tent so that it's super cozy for Indy and I so keep an eye out for that. I've got you balanced over there in the water so that I can get you far away. Far enough away that you get a wide enough angle but I'm watching the wind blowing against the umbrella that's over the camera and I can just see that the camera's going to fall at some point in the water so I'm coming to rescue you. It's a bit windy. Let me show you around. It's hard to know whether the camera can pick up the snow on the mountains. I'm sure that you can see the mountains in the background there. I'll show you the view on the other side. So there's the valley we were walking up yesterday. I'm not sure if you can see it but just past, just past where this little bit of branch is, you just see some waterfalls coming down. There was a little bit of snow right up at the top yesterday but most of that's new overnight. I know a lot of people are staunch purists when it comes to firelighting. They really love bushcraft. I'm not a purist. I'm out to have fun. I'm out to enjoy myself and I just have to carry everything in with me. So as far as I'm concerned, if I'm prepared to carry it, I can use it. So if I'm prepared to carry a chair, I can sit in a chair. If I'm prepared to carry a tarp, I can sit out in front of my tent rather than be stuck in there. And if I'm prepared to carry a firebox and some firewood from home, then good for me. I get to have a fire out here even though we didn't get to have our fireside chat last night because there was no fire last night. So what did I want to talk to you guys about? Well, oh look at that. The olive oil has solidified because it's so cold. That's cool. Come on. Well, the news for the channel is there's a couple of things that I want to do that are new and I am being tentative as I say it because, gosh I can't get it out, hold on. I have been thinking about doing some live streams and the thought scares the living daylights out of me because even though here I am on YouTube, it's actually quite nerve-wracking thinking about chatting to people live. But I have enjoyed the community around this channel so much through the comments that I think I have reached the point where I actually feel like I can trust, and it is about trust, trust people with my emotions and it's quite nerve-wracking just, you know, as I say thinking about doing live streams. But I would really like to. I'd like to connect with you guys, those of you that want to. So at some point in the near future I'm going to put out an invitation for anyone who would like to to join me for my first live stream and it's just going to be short. It's just going to be me getting used to it and saying hi to anyone who's out there who wants to. But I would love to have some things to chat to you guys about. So I'm wondering what questions you have for me. Are there things that you would love me to talk about during the live stream? So put some questions down in the comments section of this video and just let me know. Hey, yes, I'd love a live stream. I've always wondered xyz. You wouldn't believe it, the raindrops are just starting to turn into snowflakes. You know that point at which they sort of become heavy wet snowflakes? I think it's going to be snowing here within an hour. But I'm going to be gone from here within an hour because I have things that I need to tend to back at home. Important things. Otherwise I would love to stay. So I'm going to get myself packed up and if it starts to snow I will show you guys. But otherwise I'm going to pack up fairly quickly and then let's catch up just before it's time to hit the trail. The things you do, all worth it in my opinion. So worth it for this beautiful place, this beautiful experience, that beautiful fire, beautiful food. I'd do it all again and I will. But the next one hopefully will be Indy and I in the snow. So keep an eye out for that. Right I'm looking and it's not snowing yet so I might say goodbye to you guys now. It is a pretty walk out but it's beautiful here as well. I'm going to say goodbye now. See you guys later. Thank you so much for joining me on this trip. If you enjoyed this video I know you will like these two here as well. Both of them rainy camps. One of them with Indy and one without. Thanks again everybody. See you on the next trip.