Gavel fell wild camp

Gavel fell wild camp

Saturday 14th February 2015

This week we decided to camp on Gavel fell,

Gavel fell is part of a group of smaller fells on the western edge of the lakes district, its sited between Ennerdale and Loweswater and although these fells are far from the biggest, they do still give spectacular sights.

A panorama looking west from Gavel fell its cairne to the right above the tent

Gavel itself sits between Blake fell and Hen Comb, it offers clear surrounding views, to the west the comparatively flat land of the west coast, to the east a commanding view of grasmoor and the peaks of Melbrake, to the north lay Blake fell and Carling knott and to the south gives an alternate views of many greats including, Starling Dodd, Great Borne the High Stile range and in the distance even steeple and Pillar.

For such a short walk from civilization it feels as though you are far deeper into the lakes.

I was once again joined on this trip by Mr Tear who had some new kit to test out, a new inflatable mattress by Multimat and a new tent from a relatively new company named OEX, who are based in the UK.

I picked Mr Tear up at around 12pm and we drove the couple of miles to our start point near the foot of Knock Murton just outside of Kirkland village.

We took the route shown on the map below, the red line being our accent and the green line being our descent.

Route taken

The way up was a lot harder than the way down (as it usually is) but there are 2 paths upto Fothergill head.

Fothergill head is the small ridge which joins several of the small fells in this area, its the place most people will reach first whether its to ascend the popular Blake fell which overlooks Cogra Moss, or to reach any of the others nearby, including Gavel.

The gate to Cogra Moss

The 'hard' way is to follow the fence up as we (and most others do) this takes you over low and high pen little mini mountains in their own right, infact Low pen has its own little mini cairn as its such a steep little hill that obviously many others have also felt it should be awarded one....I wholeheartedly  agree.

The crossing point (gate) at the foot of the climb to Low Pen (pictured center right)

The easy way is to bear right at the foot of Low Pen and head towards gavel fell itself after a couple of hundred yards you see a farmers track, this track winds itself around the edge of High Pen and up towards Fothergill Head taking a much more friendly gradual ascent.

I decided to take Mr Tear up and over the Pens as both a test to my rather (still lacking) fitness and...well....everyone should do it at least once, Sorry Mr Tear, you know for next time. ;)

Mr Tear making the accent of Low Pen

Once we reached Fothergill head we then turned right and made our accent of Gavel, see the video below of the surrounding views (sorry for the wind noise...its not all from my heavy breathing honest!).

After a short breather we scouted the vicinity for a place to pitch, it was around 2pm by this time and we soon found a couple of half descent plots so we pitched camp.

We decided on a spot just below the summit of Gavel behind a little rocky outcrop that sheltered us from the easterly winds.

Camp struck and brews on

As I said earlier Mr Tear had a new tent by the company OEX, the tent in question is the Cougar 2 which i've done a little mini review on further down the page.

I was again using the Wild Country Zephyros 1.

By 3pm we had struck camp and had our stoves on for a brew, the sun was starting to set so I setup my new phone for a time lapse shot.

My old Samsung Galaxy s2 which I use while camping was beginning to look a little old in the tooth so I treat myself to a new Samsung Galaxy s4 zoom, which is basically a small 10x optical zoom pocket camera with an android phone attached, its a little bulky and heavy and reminds most people i've shown it to of a early 2000's device.

I'll perhaps do a mini review on it soon but I was quite impressed with it none the less and all the photos and videos on this post are taken with it so you can judge for yourself if its any good at its target niche (please disregard any operator error).

Sunset looking west from camp

The weather was pretty nice, the sun was out, it was relatively cloud free and the wind was low at around 6 mph with only the odd gust.

The views from here are as great as any within the lakes, all of them are different of course but each as spectacular as each other,

looking south towards Pillar

We has a good crack as we made some food, the sun eventually set around 7:30 pm so i took a few more shots of the now lit up coastline and then we retired to our respective shelters.

The view of the west coast lit up at night

It was still quite early and thusly some entertainment in movie form was needed (as usual), I watched one called "Her" its about a man who falls in love with his computers operating system, and, yes it was as odd as it sounds, still it did help me along to sleep....for a while at least.

I awoke around 3 am to my tent slapping me in the face, the wind had picked up considerably and was around  (im guessing) 20 mph with gusts of 40 (later confirmed winds were reaching 45 mph gusts).

The little Zephyros was holding fast, but because we pitched just off the summit just to the west behind an outcrop we should have been protected from the prevailing easterly winds, however the wind had changed direction and was now blowing from the south which meant it was hitting my tent head on along its long axis, oddly enough these single hooped tents prefer to be pitched side on to the winds with the 'front' door facing away from the source of the winds.

due to my pitching place it meant the end where my head was, was getting a battering and hence so was my face.

this continued for around 2 hours before it finally subsided around 5am and I manged another hour of broken sleep.

I awoke at 6am and heard Mr Tear was up (going to the loo) I asked him if he heard the hoolie earlier on but he said no, as he was fast asleep (a testament to his sleeping skills or his new tent I'm unsure) he then declared he wanted another hour to sleep, fair enough I wasn't going to argue with that as at that point I felt I could have slept on a clothes line.

I got up around 7am, started packing and put on a brew, the tents were covered in frost but were otherwise in excellent condition, the ground was only a little frosty in places, the forecast temps were around 4c when we set off on the trip, the post trip temps actually recorded 0c and -10c wind chill.

Morning frost on the tent, notice the sun on the left side melting it.

Let me tell you it definitely felt like it was hovering around 0c that morning.

As we began packing away the shelters the wind picked up again, a nice steady 20 mph  not much gusting but the wind was bitingly cold, putting away the last few bits of kit required gloves and out came my Haglofs hard shell to help cut out much of the wind.

After making sure there wasn't any sign of us left behind we started our descent, it only took around an hour to make it back down to the foot of Knock murton and the mini car park.

Heading home

All in all a very good little overnighter.

The OEX Cougar 2 tent

The Cougar 2 is one of several new shelters by the company OEX Outdoors, a link to their website is here http://www.oexoutdoors.com, they also seem to be bringing various other types of outdoors gear including sleep mats and sleeping bags.

The tent is an 2 person semi geodesic design that has 2 cross poles that run in an offset configuration almost parallel to each other and a central cross pole that combines to create a sturdy freestanding dome shape.

The cougar 2 Pitched in the wild (albeit on uneven ground)

Heres the tents specs 

OEX Cougar 2

Berth: 2

Bedrooms: 1

Doors: 1

Height (cm): 105.00

Length (cm): 310.00

Width (cm): 230.00

Flysheet Hydrostatic Head (mm): 5000

Groundsheet Hydrostatic Head (mm): 6000

Weight (kg): 3.65

Pack Size (cm): 44 x 18 x 18

Pole Style: Aluminium 7075

Number of Poles: 3

Fire Retardant: Fire Retardant

Flysheet Fabric: 68D 185T PU Coated Polyester Shell

Inner fabric: 68D 185T Breathable Polyester

Groundsheet Fabric: 210D Oxford Polyester

Vents: 2

It seems OEX are aiming for the upper mid range of the market with these tents, as they are going up against the likes of Vango and Wild Country in terms of specs, price and weight of their products.

Its far too early to tell you anything of their resilience but we were both impressed with the quality of materials and ease of pitching.

The weight is perhaps a bit on the heavy side if its to be used by one person alone, but this is a 2 person shelter and a little weight is to be expected at this price point, but considering the added extras such as built in porch ground sheet and separate 'roll top dry bag' style carry bags for both the inner and outer (effectively halving the weight if carried by 2 people as per its design), the added heft is to be expected, and to be honest it isn't out of line with the competitions weight for similar style tents, the Vango Halo for example has a weight 3.52Kg but foregoes the built in porch groundsheet and uses the arguably less durable 7001 t6 alloy poles.

Pitching was pretty painless, the poles went in with out snagging inside their pole sleeves and they went into their seating eyelets without too much of a wrestle, although attaching the inner to the outer was a little frustrating for Mr Tear as there was so many of them, "Thats a good thing though isn't it, nice and solid?" I asked, I didn't hear his mumbled reply but it sounded a bit like whinging, anyways it didn't take long for him to complete this task and it seems the tent can be pitched "all in one" if desired and lets face it, it was his first time pitching it.

The Cougar 2 has a large porch and roomy interior

The Cougar 2  has bags of space and great ventilation having vents at the front and back which can be propped open with the built in 'props', this is a proper 2 man tent with more than enough room inside for 2 plus gear and a porch which could easily handle a couple of packs and boots and yet still have room to cook in with the door open Mr Tear had lots of room to sit up straight in the tent and cook in the porch with his Trangia 25 while being sheltered from the wind.

The tent also features a nice bathtub groundsheet and a couple of internal pockets for storage, the tent also held up to some blustery winds of around 40-45 mph without fault, it was that stable in fact that while I was woken up by my Wild country Zephyros slapping me in the face due to the wind, Mr Tear slept soundly in the Cougar 2, surely a good sign of its ability to handle the weather in its stride.

Packing away was simple too, we left the Inner attached, took out all the pegs apart from a couple on the prevailing wind side, removed the poles and then folded the whole lot in half and rolled it up, we then removed the remaining pegs and it went into its larger carrying bag all in one with minimal fuss.

Packing away, a perspective size of the generous porch

All in all, it seems that OEX are bringing some nice high quality shelters to the market and at very reasonable prices too, at the time of writing the Cougar 2 is available for £129, a bargain!

So there you have it, a nice start from a new outdoors company which well be keeping a close eye on as it seems so far their products are great value for money.

Until next time,

Happy trails and kindest regards, CragScrambler