Wind testing

I recently had to go to Snowdonia to pick up a bench for my Campervan, it was far to wet & windy to climb, I had a choice of returning home to Sheffield, Parisellas cave with Aly (out 'because my rotator cuff is knackered) or....

....Remembering a rather drunken debate between myself and Jim Keeley (Apex’s Owner), regarding the stability of the air beam tents in bad weather, I decided (somewhat stupidly) to head of up Snowdon and pitch the sample Morpho AR leant to prove otherwise, with the hope of handing him back a shredded mess. The forecast had suggested gusts of 60Mph were likely. I parked at Pen-y-pass, left a note for the car park dude to let him know I was staying on the mountain ("Hi, I’m in the blue transporter van...sleeping on Snowdon tonight, If Its still parked here at 2pm start worrying") and headed off up the mountain, initially the vis’ was good but as I joined the PYG track and traversed up under Crib Goch the cloud base dropped till I was in deep in clag, as I neared the summit plateau edge I could hear the roar of the wind and it was quite disconcerting to say the least, the nearest thing I can compare it to was a Vulcan Bomber at Duxford. On route to the summit I was knocked over twice so, I was starting to get worry about pitching the tent in the midst of the maelstrom wind from hell.




On arrival at the summit I was considering heading back to the valley but darkness was nearly upon me and I couldn’t be arsed, “how bad could a bit of wind be?”

I couldn’t actually pitch the tent on the summit as there isn’t any grass so I headed in the direction of Lliwedd to the col in between the two peaks were I knew there was some flat ground, unfortunately darkness overtook me and the rain started so all I could find was a small patch of grass on the edge of a cliff just off the main path, the tent just fit on but about 5cm overhung the edge, as the Nemo tents are tunnel in nature and not geodesic I was slightly concerned about the lack of ideal pegging points but as it was pissing it down I decided to worry about it later, I threw my pack in the tent and started inflating the Morpho from inside. After 1 min or so it was up. I got out my thermarest, sleeping bag and started looking for my food, I could of looked for the whole night but I probably wouldn't of found it as I'd left it in the Van...

The weather throughout the night was particularly horrid, I was repeatedly ass whipped by the Morpho’s air beams in the extreme wind, but I'm pretty convinced that most normal tents would of been ripped to pieces and the poles would of snapped. The air beams are pretty cool, becasue they smash you in the face and then pop straight back up! Using my noise cancelling headphones I managed to grab a satisfactory night sleep until I was woken around 6am by the wet tent fabric, one of the rear pegs had manage to come out, hence the rear of the tunnel was sagging onto my face, amazingly enough this did not cause the whole tent to demoleculize as I'd expected. I was slightly damp due to the horizontal rain being blown in the vent but all in all I was surprisingly happy in my little green home.




SO... at the end of the day I have found out that the Nemo, all though certainly not billed a 4-season tent, was capable of standing up to 4 season weather despite being improperly pitched and even remained standing when the guy pegs came out in 60mph winds at almost 3000ft!




I Have learnt a few things from this little trip..

1. Sheep are amazing creatures in the way that they can stand up to incredibly hostile weather with little or no shelter - WE ARE NOT SHEEP!

2. Sheep, although stupid, do not leave their food in Vans.

Jim Keeley (and Apex), 1 Taylor, 0

Until next time...