PART OF AN ONGOING PERSONAL ARCHIVE

2019: I Thought I Was Ready For Storm Hannah

Twelve hours later I was bailing out my tent with my boxer shorts

Photo by Faris Mohammed on Unsplash

In 2019 my attempt to become an outdoorsman was quickly humbled by nature, basic physics, and a car park.

Things started to unravel the moment I arrived in the Brecon Beacons.

At the time I put it down to changing plans at the last minute. Looking back, I can trace the entire disaster to one small decision: I checked the mountain weather forecast and decided I was qualified to interpret it.

Recently I’d decided I was going to hike hardcore. Not the sort of camping where you wander round a National Trust property and stop for flapjacks. Proper hiking.

I had invested in lightweight equipment and intended to live on my wits, instinct, resourcefulness and inner strength.

My rucksack was forever packed and sat by my desk waiting for the nod.

The plan was to test my new approach by breaking myself in hiking the Brecon Beacons in South Wales on Saturday before heading north to climb Snowdon on Sunday.

I diligently checked the specialist mountain weather forecast like a pro — I surprise myself sometimes!

I noticed it was going to be a bit breezy. Gusts of 40–50mph at both locations on Saturday, but vastly improved for Sunday.

Snowdon is a lot higher than the Beacons so I figured it would be easier to tackle the windy conditions at lower altitude first.

What I’d failed to notice was that there was a storm coming.

A storm professional forecasters had taken the trouble to name.

If I’d watched an ordinary weather forecast where they join the dots for idiots like me by naming storms, I might have put my rucksack away and watched Storm Hannah unfold from the comfort of the sofa.

But no.

With the weather rapidly turning to rat shit, I drove down the M4 to Wales. The light was fading fast when I finally arrived. I looked for somewhere to wild camp.

In my haste to dump the car and head off on foot before it got pitch black, I committed a litany of basic errors. Even for me.

I set off in torrential rain in jeans.

No torch.

No matches.

A phone with low battery.

No phone charger.

And no change of clothes except for a spare pair of boxers.

Which, as it turned out, were less a change of clothes and more a close fifth to the Coastguard in the Emergency Services league table.

I found a spot behind a crumbling dry stone wall beside a small copse and some sheep pens.

It wasn’t the Four Seasons but it would hopefully provide enough cover. Not from the gale which, by now, was taking no prisoners, but from the farmer who had clocked me earlier and who I somehow knew would come to turf me off his land for trespassing.

My new lightweight tent, which had seemed perfectly straightforward to erect on the living room floor two months ago, now made as much sense as a magic trick being shown to a dog.

I’m used to tents where the outside goes up first and the sleeping compartment goes underneath. This one required the inner mesh compartment to be erected first.

Which would have made perfect sense in a desert.

On a rain-soaked mountainside in the shadow of Pen Y Fan I was basically building a covered swimming pool.

I threaded the poles through the loops using my phone torch which I’d stuffed into my coat collar of my coat because I did not have three hands but was rapidly discovering I needed them.

Remarkably, the sleeping compartment took shape.

Unfortunately, the mesh walls provided about as much protection from the stair-rodding rain as a fishing net.

Within minutes it resembled a pathetic paddling pool with a net curtain masquerading as a roof.

Just as I was about to put the flysheet on, I heard the farmer approaching in his pickup.

Sweet Jesus, not now.

He stopped about 30 meters away with his headlights blazing and swept his fields with a powerful torch.

I hit the deck, listening for the sound of approaching stout footwear and imminent capture.

I also couldn’t help noticing how absorbent my jeans were.

The only thing I had done right all evening was pitch the tent behind the wall.

The farmer eventually acknowledged my fortuitous stealth by giving up and going home.

Back to the tent.

The last part was proving to be particularly tricky in pitch darkness.

You try using your phone as a torch in one hand whilst trying to secure the flysheet that thinks it’s a stunt kite in a wind tunnel.

Take it from me — it ain’t easy.

Eventually, the tent fully erected, I gingerly eased myself into the shallow end.

What I really needed now was a giant sponge.

Or at the very least a toilet roll. Something to bail or absorb the water.

But I’d forgotten that as well.

There was therefore only one item left in my possession that vaguely resembled a mop.

My clean underwear.

It takes a surprising amount of time and effort to soak up two inches of water with light cotton boxers while lying in a nylon coffin.

Every time I opened the tent flap to wring them out, the rain took the opportunity to invade my personal space and add more water.

Eventually I managed to clear enough of the flood to put my miraculously dry sleeping bag on top of my thin camping mattress.

I lay there for about four hours wondering

1. What the hell I was doing
2. Whether anyone had ever invented a hobby that generated this much misery
3. How the erection of tents could be improved. From the manufacturers end, not the inept camper’s.

I could hear wave upon wave of near-horizontal rain roaring up the valley through the pine trees.

I seriously wondered if I would wake up with a tree lying across me, which would put bailing water out of my tent with my boxer shorts into sharp perspective.

Suffice to say it was a long night.

I could hear the gusts approaching from way down the valley. The roar of the wind in the pines got louder and louder.

My tent felt as robust as a discarded sweet wrapper at the end of a busy runway.

Every time a gust passed overhead I waited to be flattened by a tree or blown back to England

I finally woke from a deep five-minute sleep at about 5am.

I don’t think I can take much more of this.

Although the storm had passed, the rain apparently still had unfinished business to attend to and continued to batter me as I dismantled, folded and rolled my tent into a bag the size of a large condom.

I trudged back to the car in the half light of morning, lined the car seat with a bin liner and sat there like a drowned rat.

I need a new plan.

Nearby, Brecon had a Wetherspoons pub offering an all-day breakfast. Admittedly it didn’t open for two hours but that was fine.

I had survived the storm.

I deserved this.

I parked in a supermarket car park. It was closed and the car park was empty.

Perfect.

A bit of shut eye before my well deserved full English fry-up, bottomless coffee, and the Saturday papers.

This, as it turned out, set me up beautifully for the long but picturesque drive to Snowdonia.

Which was more than can be said for the parking ticket I received for overstaying my two-hour free parking limit in a closed supermarket car park.

You can’t win ’em all.

Although, looking back, it was hard to detect where I was winning at all.

Still, if I paid early, my fine would be a paltry £60 instead of £100.

Little victories.