Our first Wild Camping Skills Weekender

At the weekend I put on our very first TAGC Wild Camping Skills weekender, this is something I’ve wanted to host for a while. Wild camping has been such an important part of my adventures and I really wanted to share it with other women and help them feel more confident sleeping under the stars. It was such a success and probably one of my favourite events I’ve put on in the club - seeing the girls grow in confidence over the weekend was so amazing. 

There won’t be any more of these this year, but I will be putting on more for next summer so keep your eyes peeled!

A month before the weekend, I hosted a kit webinar to help the girls understand all the kit jargon and what exactly they will need for wild camping. This gave them enough time to buy any new kit they might need.

Here’s what we got up to on the weekend…

Friday evening

The first night was spent at the Three Hares Campsite to test our kit before heading onto the moors. Everyone arrived at different times and set up camp with the help from me and our other guide, Melissa. We had one tent pole break on the first set-up! Luckily I had a spare tent so we used that instead. Everyone else’s set up went well, with a bit of figuring out new tents but we got the hang of it in the end.

Once we were all set up we had dinner and chatted, getting to know the other girls and relaxing into the first night of camping. 

Saturday

We woke up to a beautiful sunny morning and made teas and coffees on our individual stoves, before having an informal ‘camp tour’ where we each went round every one’s camp setup and talked through our kit. Each person talked about their setup - how much it was, where it was from, what they liked about it, what they disliked about it etc. It’s a great way of understanding the different kit you can buy and adding anything to the wish list of future buys. 

After the camp tour we went through our wild camping workbook. The first section was a mindset workshop all about fear - this part was super important to me as I know fear is the biggest thing that prevents women from getting out on wild camps, so we went in really deep here! Lots of great topics of conversation came up and it was a really safe space to share our fears (even the ones that seem silly!) and then rationalise them and work out the best way to prevent them. 

Some of the fears that came up were:

• Being trampled on by cows/horses
• Kit breaking or forgetting something
• Having a weird encounter with a man or 
• Being assaulted / murdered by a man
• Getting anxious or having a panic attack
• Being asked to move on
• Falling ill / getting sick
• Insects coming into the tent
• Pooping outdoors
• Getting too cold or being uncomfortable

Melissa and I assured them that even the most experienced campers still have these fears too! But the key is to know what to do to prevent these things from happening, or know what to do in an emergency. 

After talking about fear we then discussed what to do to keep ourselves safe (with a ‘safety checklist’ I made), what to do in an emergency, what the laws are around wild camping, the camping code of conduct and how to plan for a wild camp.

We then packed up our kit into our bags and drove to our start point in Belstone where we went through some basic navigation and our plan for the day. 

Now everyone was feeling confident and prepared we began our walk onto Dartmoor. We left Belstone and followed the banks of the River Taw, past waterfalls, ferns and rolling hills, stopping for lunch at a beautiful ford. We continued on to our first potential camp spot at the foot of Steeperton Tor, however there were already a few tents set up there so we decided to fill up our water and continue off-path a little to Oke Tor where we were hoping to set-up instead. Once we got to Oke Tor, there was no one there so we dropped out heavy bags and walked around to find the best spots to camp. We all spread out individually so it felt like solo camping, with the knowledge that there were friendly people nearby if anything went wrong. 

Once we had all picked our spot, we set up our tents and lit our stoves to make some dinner, overlooking the epic views of Dartmoor. We were treated to an amazing sunset, so we sat on the rocks with tea and took in the beauty around. 

Sunday

Sunday morning we all woke up for sunrise at 5.40am and wow, did we have a treat! It was a perfectly still morning, with mist in the valley and stunning gradients in the sky. We all sat on the rocks and made coffee and breakfast taking in the amazing views while the sun peaked its head over Cosdon Hill. 

Once the sun had risen and we had eaten breakfast, we packed everything up, put our bags on and set off to walk off the Tor. We walked down to Cullever steps, one of my favourite swim spots, and had a much-needed refreshing dip in the water. We had a post-swim tea and soaked up the sun to warm up before heading off on the last stretch of hiking back to Belstone. 

We finished at the Tors Inn where we had some delicious burgers and chatted about the weekend before saying our goodbyes and driving home. 

A big thank you to the 7 girls who booked on, it was such a lovely group! Everyone got well and truly stuck in and got so much out of the weekend. I’m always so grateful to have the nicest girls come to my events.