Winter camping

I'd been itching to go camping for a while,  but it kept on raining ... and suddenly it was 2024.  January first bought the floods and then some dry, freezing weather.  This was my chance!  I packed every bit of warm gear and headed off.   I planned to camp on Leith Hill, repeating my wonderful,  cold night under the stars from two years ago, my first experience of camping without a tent or even a tarp: just a bivi bag.

The route was simple, to try and avoid floods or ice.  Late 11s at Horton, then late lunch at Dorking, before struggling up Coldharbour Lane with my ten tons of camping equipment - mainly sleeping bags.

Around Epsom I met Jennie & David, returning from the Wayfarers A group ride, abandoned  due to ice.   I also saw my first patch of (melting) ice just there too.   There were a few more patches on the climb up to Coldharbour, and plenty more on the lumpy road around the south of Leith Hill.  The track up to Leith Hill Tower was miraculously dry, and free of ice, mud, gravel or sand.

Snow!

Arriving at Leith Hill Tower,  I was impressed to find the cafe still open at 15.45, when they shut at 3pm.  A few other people were admiring the beginnings of a beautiful sunset.  It was perishing, with snow on the grass and an icy wind.  I found a somewhat sheltered spot within sight of the tower, and made my evening meal while watching a gorgeous sunset over Hindhead(?)   Beef stew with pearl barley: not bad at all, but by the end of it I was very cold and it was getting dark, so I quickly set up my groundsheet, bivi bag, two sleeping bags (Army arctic sleeping bag and Mountain Warehouse winter sleeping bag), two sleeping mats, and got changed into a lot of warm gear for sleeping in. The temperature had dropped from 6 degrees to freezing by the time I got into bed (which is quite a performance with all those layers to organise).  I couldn't stop shivering for some time while I warmed up.   

However, it was a starry, starry night; mostly clear with just a few occasional clouds, and a new moon, so the stars were glorious.   After a while I was plenty warm enough, once I realised that I hadn't zipped up one of my sleeping bags.  I had more than twelve hours to enjoy the stars and some sleep too, as sunrise wasn't till around 8am.   With the help of Google Sky I recognised a few constellations and spotted Venus and Mars.  Saturn was supposed to be visible but it was hiding behind a tree.   Each star could be someone's Sun.   All the stars that we can see are only from our own galaxy (the Milky Way) - there are 200 billion other galaxies too, according to Google.   Mind boggling.

Some of the stars that my phone camera spotted

On this night - on this night of a thousand stars ... I also had time to think about my way home.   The problem with camping at the top of a hill on a cold night is that you have to go down again first thing in the morning.   There is no cafe to loiter in until it warms up, and you can't just stand around either.  The melted ice would be frozen again.  I could walk through the patches on the road to Coldharbour, but there was a longish stretch of water and slush on one of the steep ascents from Dorking to Coldharbour.   I wasn't convinced I could walk down that with a heavy bike.   So I decided to go back along busier roads, which I hoped would be gritted.

Dawn came fast (or maybe I dozed off again) and it was time to brave the cold.   A heavy frost covered my bags, my shoes and helmet (oops - rookie mistake), and my bivi bag.   The temperature had been down to -3 overnight, and had now come back up to -2.6 degrees.  I got dressed as quickly as I could and started to pack away, but my hands were numb so it was tricky to close bags or even feel things in my pockets.   Eventually I set off down the track (no ice), turning right onto Leith Hill Road (no ice), and ignoring Friday Street without any regrets at all, continued to the A25 (again, no ice).   Breakfast in Dorking while I recovered the use of my hands, and then an uneventful ride back home.

I would give it a 5 star rating, but it had to have at least a thousand.