Adventurer Nic Hardy is an ambassador for #WildNightOut and here she explains her motivations for deciding to spend 76 nights wild camping and bothying in the last year.
2017 was the year of my first wild camp. Using borrowed kit, I survived a sleepless night under the stars, stealthily hidden away in the middle of the Lake District National Park. The experience should have put me off for life. I was uncomfortable, restless and failed to get a wink of sleep all night. I should have crawled back into my comfy bed back home and ticked it off my bucket list, never to be repeated. But that didn’t happen. I bought my own camping kit and planned my next camp almost immediately.
In 2018 I honed my craft, trying a couple of different tents and a bivvy bag to find out what worked best for me. I started to wear silicone earplugs for a more peaceful sleep, I tried three different camping mattresses and three different sleeping bags. I sold on the kit that didn’t work for me second hand.
By 2019 I was ready to take on a bigger challenge. Whilst working my notice in my job as an emergency services IT programme manager, I whittled down the belongings of my three-bedroomed house in Barnsley, South Yorkshire to virtually nothing. I sold all my furniture and the decorative nonsense I’d accumulated over the years that didn’t serve a purpose and I was left with my essentials – clothes, footwear, toiletries, books and of course my trusty camping equipment. Then the house itself was sold, the job gone and all I had left was my car and my essential outdoors gear.
Feeling cleansed of the material possessions that rooted me to the one spot, I set out on the challenge of a lifetime – to climb the 282 Munro mountains in Scotland over six months with my boyfriend James. The Munros are mountains over 3,000ft in the Scottish Highlands and peak bagging effectively became my summer job.
We incorporated as many wild nights out into the challenge as we could as we camped all over Scotland. My highest camps were just off the summits of Ben Macdui (1,309m), Ben Challum (1,025m), Stob Coire a’Chairn (981m) and the feature photograph, taken at sunrise on Sron an Isean (966m).
Other notable camps included loch-side beauties in Sutherland, the Fisherfield wilderness, stunning Torridon and a camp with a stunning Black Cuillin backdrop on the Isle of Skye.
In addition to the camps, we slept in bothies for 16 nights. These simple remote shelters are lovingly maintained by the Mountain Bothy Association (MBA). The bothy code centres around respect. Respect the bothy, its surroundings, other users, the agreement with landowners and don’t overcrowd the bothies.
Being a Wild Night Out ambassador is a great opportunity to encourage outdoors and adventure lovers to enjoy responsible outdoor wild camping. Join me under the stars by spending #WildNightOut2020 in your tent, bivvy bag or hammock on 11 July 2020.
Need more inspiration? Adventurer Nic is sharing her 95 Munro bagging routes together with wild camping tales on her website.