looking across to Mt Blanc side of chamonix valley

steps outside top station, below petit aguille verte

Inside station, ?which

?below the inn pinn, black cuillin

billyboulders-i’ve heard great things about that tent too, certainly much cheaper than the terra nova stuff …..mmm, laser light 😉
i’ve never had a problem of slipping of the mat. try sleeping on a flat ground 😉

polarisandy-did you do the cullin ridge? would love to have a go sometime.

Flat ground, good tip 😉 I do tend to move about a bit when I’m asleep (usually dreams involving one or more of girls aloud and the like!)

Army surplus bivvy bag, ancient softie copy sleeping bag, few other bits and bobs, berghaus mach 25 pack. Used my Roast but planning on using my inbred this summer when I finally get a chance to repeat it.

stato,

for underneath insulation i used an evazote equivilant foam pad which rolls up quite small and weighs just a few grams, came in a 8’x4′ sheet 5mm thick which i cut down to suit the shape of the hennessy, cost about 6 quid a sheet from a local supplier.
my friends use homemade underblankets one of which is a standard issue army summer sleeping bag(butchered) the other was sylnylon outer with two layers of thinsulate both were a bit bulky, all of which are quite warm.
down underblankets are our next trial although hennessey sell the under blanket for $130.

he’s got his sleeping mat inside the bivvy bag-despite our advice

whys that a bad idea? Don’t fancy a balloon bed on the outside of bivi and sleeping bag? Also got a top bag so meant to have mat inside bag?

Bivi system is 770grams! Mat, sleeping bag and bivi bag. Just hope its practical. Thats less than my tent on its own by 200 grams!

I’ve been making home made wood gisification stoves for a while. All part of the fun. Couldn’t do without some kind of stove.

A wood whatification stove?? Sounds outdoorsy, do tell more.

Doughnut

yes on the 5th attempt…
A fantastic (slightly intimidating) place.

Well i was inspired last night so a quick stuffing of gear and i was out in the wilds… well almost, i could still hear the faint sound of the nearby A1 but i couldnt be arsed to ride right out into the countryside 😀

Kit wise i had the hammock @3lb, sleeping bag (4 season alpkit) @3lb, selfinflating mat at about 2lb and a change of clothes. Pretty heavy really but ive always tent camped (with car transport) before so warmth was always above weight.

Was a bit warm in the 4 season but easilly solved by opening zip at bottom. Sleeping mat did move around a bit, not really the right shape for a hammock but it did a top job as i could really feel the cold if i moved my feet off it. Got some heavy rain in the night and it was windy in the treetops but not a drop hit me thanks to the tarp, even tho id tied one side high so i could see out over the fields…

Bring on the next one!

Polarisandy, the top photo looks familiar. Is it Lac Blanc by any chance? I was up there a couple of weeks ago but it was all covered in snow.

Yes slug, i think it is, heres another view from the Aguille Rouge side, i think showing the Argentier Glacier.

What were you doing over there?

What were you doing over there?

I tried cycling up to Lac Blanc but I got turfed out by a ranger soon after starting the climb ‘cos it’s in a wildlife reserve in which cycling is banned. So I walked up there the next day from Argentiere then down into Chamonix. A nice snowy 7 hour trek in SPD’s!

TJ is clearly looking at camping

Which is why he keeps suggesting a tent.

But a tent isn’t bivvying.

It’s like I can’t go motorbiking in a car. You still travel by the power of internal combustion but in one you’re more in contact with the world around you. Same difference.

Err, because you can write off that central triangle bag for most full suspension designs and that thing hanging off the seatpost will only take a fraction of the load a rack can.

Wasn’t suggesting a frame bike, you need a bike as ugly as SSP’s for that to work ;o)

Seatpack, handlebar bag and a Wingnut, distribute your kit between all three = some semblance of decent handling still and a happy arse.

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lucky fella, would love to be there at moment. AFAIK there is a downhill course from the top of the Brevant station- but i guess that doesn’t mean you can cycle along the tops of it all.
Gives great view across to the Dru/Mt Blanc/ Aguille du midi doesn’t it?

cheers

Dave – but no one has told me what the advantage of bivvying is. You save a kilo max over a tent. probably much less. Why not be comfy for the price of carrying an extra few hundred grammes?

As I said – I have bivvyed often but see no advantage bar the small weight saving and many huge disadvatages

Dave – but no one has told me what the advantage of bivvying is. You save a kilo max over a tent. probably much less. Why not be comfy for the price of carrying an extra few hundred grammes?

Because you’d then be camping not bivvying.

I can drive a car and be comfy but I’m not then motorbiking, it’s similar but a different experience.

If you can’t understand that, I’m giving up. 🙂

its the singlespeed vs gears argument all over again 🙄

As I said – I have bivvyed often but see no advantage bar the small weight saving and many huge disadvatages

pro’s and cons – being able to look at the stars, lighter, more stealth etc are pro’s for bivvying…

Sorry Dave – but thats still not saying what the advantage is

You get nothing bivvying that you don’t get camping from my experience

I think looking for advantages/disadvantages is the wrong way of going about it TBH. If you enjoy doing something do it, if you don’t then don’t. I love both camping (lightweight or fully laden on an official site with all the luxuries in the boot of the car) and bivvying equally and do either whenever the opportunity arises.
You say you didn’t enjoy bivvying, although to your credit, you gave it a go so thats your experience. Stick with camping if thats what you like best. 🙂

(Good luck pitching your tent somewhere like polarisandys last pic on the previous page tho!)

Sorry Dave – but thats still not saying what the advantage is

It is, but you can’t see it.

And it’s not my job to make you understand, which is why I’m not going to try any further.

You’ve tried it, you didn’t get it – I doubt I’m going to make any difference to your lack of understanding.

no one is claiming there is an advantage bivvying TJ, its about a different experience.

If your desperate for an advantage to bivvying…

1. cheaper? a light 1 man tent (thats not a POS!) is not cheap, bivvy bags are available from £10?
2. bulk, my cheap (and heavy) 1 man tent is still 2/3 times the size of my cheap bivvy bag.

Experience wise, i think what most people get is the sleeping in the ‘outdoors’ feel, somthing you dont get in a tent. Also, if there are more than 2 of you (as shown in some pics on this thread) then bivvying is a bit more sociable, rather than shouting through your tent walls (oh and you cant claim that you can leave the door of your tent open to chat, as that negates most of the tent ‘advantages’)

Ok – thanks for attempting to explain the differences. Its not just I have “given it a go” ( bivvying) I have probably bivvyed for 50 or 60 nights over the years. ( and camped for of thousand nights) One occasion every night for 3 wks many many miles from anywhere out in Patagonia. Maybe I’m getting older but the discomfort simply ain’t worth it and the lack of safety margins if the weather turns.

I think the issue is I like to go into the wilds – not on the edges of towns. Have a look at the photos from people like Druidh and see if you can understand why for many of us bivvying simply is not a reasonable option. I have gone to bed in glorious sunshine and woken up with an outside temp of -5. In the above instance I was with a group and we had people suffering from exposure and hypothermia.

So maybe for a stealth “bivvy” on the edge of a town it has a point, but when you are out in the wilds?

TJ i think you should have said that in the begining , were not all adventurers you know! 🙄

I think for most people (including me) camping is sleeping in a damp tent where the greatest inconvenience is having to walk across boggy grass to get to the toilet block, what you do is called exploring/adventuring/crazy mate! Your reasons are obviously incredibly valid for the sort of situations you find yourself in, however i think in this situation youve brought a cannon to a knife fight 😆 . Dont know about everyone else but im pretty sure most on here are talking 1-2 nights at most, maybe never much further from civilization as just over the next hill.

I think there’s maybe 2 forms of bivving being talked about here, which is providing the gulf of confusion.
I think historically bivving was more accomodation of last resort, either because you needed to get on a mountain early, or couldn’t get off in time, or the landscape you were travelling through wasn’t suitable for a tent, or historically because a tent weighed too much. But essentially it was a means to end. If you’ve spent the day in the cold and rain and have to spend the next day in the cold and rain then having a bivvy is better than spending the night in the cold and rain, but not much. Given the choice of a tent, no sane person would turn it down.
Then there’s another form of bivvying, let’s call it STW bivving, which essentially consists of bivving by choice. Choosing nice clement weather, taking a few beers and sleeping out with some mates, and probably leaving a pub just before and going to a cafe afterwards, it’s an end in itself.

What we need is for OP’s to define if they’re talking about old skool bivving or STW bivvying, then the fog of confusion will magically lift 🙂

*EDIT Bugger! I went off and made a cup of tea halfway through writing this, and now seeing the new posts, i find my post is now even more redudant than normal 🙂

Ian / stato – that sums it up nicely.

I’ll disagree. :o)

I think the issue is I like to go into the wilds – not on the edges of towns.

Me too.

My experience in terms of time and places spent under canvas is very similar to yours too.

I see both forms as equally valid in true wilderness situations. It’s just that a bivvy bag is also more useful for next to town/stealth situations than a tent.

You’ve either got the kit to cope with the climate or you haven’t. Maybe some people can cope with a bit more discomfort than others but sleeping in a bivvy bag has never been any worse than in a small lightweight tent.

To misquote Ian:

If you’ve spent the day in the cold and rain and have to spend the next day in the cold and rain then having a lightweight tent is better than spending the night in the cold and rain, but not much. Given the choice of a B+B, no sane person would turn it down.

:o)

Ok Dave – we ain’t gonna agree. I must be getting old. In inclement weather I’d rather be in my nice warm dry tent – with room to cook in the dry and keep my kit in the dry. too many wet miserable nights in the past to risk my arthritic bones again

In the wilds you don’t need the stealth – and the weight penalty is hardly significant

preference seems to be outweighed by necessity.

Event/activity/season/duration/seriousness, whatever else make the choice.

what i would like doesn’t usually get a look in.

Hammocking, you get a view all the time, you can sit in the hammock. Tarp is needed though. Bivvybag, great if you are near shelter but you can use a poncho for the head end to stay dry. Aestheticaly I prefer bivvy bags/tarps and hammock tarps over tents. I have a midge net on my hammock (dd travel hammock).

Nick

The advantages of bivvying are easy to see – you dont need to carry a tent and you need a much smaller place to pitch. For comfort a tent is always better, but for being closer to nature bivvying is the way forward.

Bivvies are faster to deploy / pack up, most probably lighter and give a nice view of the sky. If they are "better" is down to the user and the use.

My bag is a custom one from Jeff @ Carousel Design Works, and I have a handlebar system and seat bag on order from Eric at Epic Designs Alaska. That lot and a Camelbak Octane 8 I can carry more than enough for long term trips with "civilsation" clothes as well as a spare set of cycling clothing.

SSP