-15

It's -15 degrees centigrade tonight. It's going to be tough.

Fortunately I now have snow shoes so getting up the hill should be easier.

It's actually quite cold up there.

I slept in the "igloo", that's right the one without the roof. Very very cold and not very happy. That's probably the best way to describe monday night in the woods. Not that it actually was very very cold, it was only about - 8 degrees centigrade, and that is comparatively mild. Later in the week it's due to be - 20 or even -25.

The worst bit about the morning was getting out of the sleeping bag, it was even colder outside the bag than in, the next worse bit was putting on cold shoes and trying to get frozen toothpaste out of the tube. Putting the kettle on for a cup of tea was the highpoint, closely followed by realising I could thaw my Nutella sandwich out by putting it in the inside pocket of my coat. The chocolate was still frozen by the time I ran out of patience but I still felt quite resourceful. I managed to get another layer of blocks onto the igloo but it was so cold that the snow was still very glassy and so the blocks didn't stick together. I'm going to let them melt a little during the day and then freeze together when the temperature drops before adding the next layer.

Yeesh

Tired, very very tired.

I spent the first night up the mountain last night and it was not too bad. The weather is quite warm at the moment and it was a clear moonlit night so the journey up the hill wasn't too challenging. Rather than taking a short cut through the woods, which involves trudging through waist deep snow, traversing cliff tops and a lot of climbing, I took the long way along a foot path. Unfortunately the path was like just a sheet of ice, people have been skiing down it and the snow has been melting in the sun during the day then freezing at night. It was like walking on an ice rink. A very steep ice rink, fortunately I was wearing snowboard boots which don't have the best grip and my centre of gravity was somewhere up around my shoulders because of the massive rucksack I was carrying. Nevertheless I got up the hill without falling, often, and then made it to my new home with very little in the way of traumas.

I was quite pleased to find that all the ice had melted from the bed I had previously made from branches and moss. It was such a nice night; I’m guessing around 0 degrees centigrade, that I just got into my sleeping bag under the stars. I didn’t sleep so well, first the moonlight kept me awake, and then it was hard to get comfortable sleeping on a hard lumpy bed. Eventually I did get to sleep and was only woken up whenever I rolled on to my injured shoulder. By the small hours the temperature had dropped to about, I guess, -8 so I would occasionally wake from the cold.

This morning was fantastic, I got up, had a frozen cheese sandwich and some cold tea for breakfast and then, having decided in the night that I didn’t like where I was sleeping so decided to move house. Or rather I found a flat bit of ground and attempted to make an igloo on it. I’ve never made an igloo before, it turns out that there is a bit of a knack to it. I didn’t start working out what this knack is until I was about half way through so as a result the base level is not as strong as the top. I think I’ll sleep outside again tonight and see if the “igloo” is still standing in the morning.

Monday Kick Off

Things have changed, as they often do, and so I'm moving into the snow this monday the 17th rather than having to wait until the 22nd. I have gathered up most of the equipment that I need, and am now just lacking snowshoes, something warm to lie on and things like that. I have been reunited with my trusty basher so there will be some form of roof in my life, I wasn't overly keen on being woken up by snow falling on my face.

This week I have been training hard for the upcoming challenge; I've been getting plenty of sleep and putting on as much weight as possible. So yes, my training regime has consisted of sitting on the sofa and eating cakes. All that comes to an end on Monday though so if you'll excuse me I must get back to my training. All this typing is using up valuable calories.

Start date

I'm going to be moving into the snowdrift on january 22nd. It would have been earlier but there are various demands on my time that prevent this happening.

Back "home"

So this is the bed that I made back last summer, looks comfortable huh? The walk up to it was through knee deep / waist deep snow and took an hour and a half. Judging by the amount of snow on the bed I have chosen a reasonably sheltered spot. The big problem is that I don't have a spare 90 minutes every night to walk up the mountain so I think I'll have to buy some snow shoes to speed my journey over the snow.

First night in the snow

Survived the first night

Went up the hill last night to test drive my new sleeping bag in a "worst case scenario". So I took the sleeping bag, some warm clothes, a flask of tea and a blanket and went off to look for a patch of flat ground to sleep on. Having walked up hill for about 20 minutes I found a flat patch of snow, lay the blanket on it, put the sleeping bag on that and went to bed. Sure enough my body heat melted the snow which soaked the matress and then the sleeping bag so that kept me awake a bit, as did the snow falling on my face. However, I slept much better then imagined and got up feeling refreshed and keen to get on with the day, well keen to go home and have a shower and some scrambled eggs.



Conclusion, with some form of insulating layer to protect me from loosing body heat to the ground and something waterproof living in the snow in the alps in the winter should be possible.



Next step - get more kit and start building a shelter out of snow.

Not so certain

Me and my rucksack as the sun comes over the mountain

Last night was quite mild, around 10 degrees centigrade. Nevertheless, this was chilly enough to make me realise that there is a flaw in my plan to use a duvet rather than an arctic sleeping bag. Every time I rolled over I was rewarded with a nice blast of cold air coming in under the duvet. It wasn't much of an issue last night but as the temperature could fall to -20, that's 30 degrees colder than last night, it could well become one.

I have kind of figured out how I am going to make the roof and where the door will be, the big problem is that I don't necessarily have the skills to build it. I foresee a lot of trial, error and swearing over the next month or two. Although the problem with that is that the hunting season starts soon so it might be that I have to take an enforced break from woodland living for fear of being taken out by Elma Fudd.

Ha ha

Newly comfortable abode

It may not come as a complete surprise to learn that night after night of not sleeping properly is gets tiresome after a while. By yesterday afternoon I was walking about like a zombie, the idea of another night of waking up ever hour or two with no feelings in my arms, and having to shake the life back into them. I decided that I had had enough of sleeping in all my clothes and a one piece ski suit, something had to give. I left the ski suit and extra fleeces at home last night and opted instead to bring a duvet up to the forest. Wow. I slept like a baby. So now I'm considering whether it is worth spending a couple of hundred pounds on an arctic sleeping bag or if I can get away with a nice thick duvet.

One thing that being warm made me realise was that my bed has become uncomfortable. The thick layers of moss that I lay down on branches has compacted and now follows the contours of the branches. This afternoon I'm going to take the bed apart and rebuild it so it has a flatter base on which to lay the moss. I'm also going to puzzle over how best to build a roof that will hold the weight of lots of snow, I know it should be relatively straight forward but the geography of the place is throwing up some difficulties.

First signs of snow

It snowed last night, not on me, I got an amusing covering of rain. Higher up the mountain there was a thin covering of snow this has now melted away and what had been green yesterday is now a rich russet. The very highest mountain tops are still white, but then the snow on them never completely melted away. Whilst it did not snow on me It's definitely getting colder, it was 6.2 degrees C when I woke at 6.45 this morning. I suspect it was colder still when I woke at 4 am but I was not inclined to rummage around for the thermometer at that time. Not having a proper sleeping bag is becoming a bit of an issue. I'm warm enough at night as I wear lots of very warm layers, the problem is that wearing so many clothes is cutting the circulation off to my arms and I keep waking up with no feeling in them.

In celebration of the forthcoming winter here is a video that I have been studying closely

Satisfying

Satisfying

Written on an itouch with a teeny timy keyboard so please excuse typos.

You join me this evening as I sit by a fire, my front warm yet my back distinctly chilly. I am of course boiling water for tea and I'm feeling distinctly happy with my lot. This may of course be due to having recently worked my way onto the outside of a fillet steak but I think there is more to it than that. When I woke this morning I felt terific, which was a surprise as last night was rather cold and there is no zip on my sleeping bag. Despite this I woke feeling refreshed
and more. I had the sense of well being that comes after playing sport. A rather good state otlf afairs seeing as all I had done was sleep, and I have never seen that at the Olympics. I suppose it was down to having a sense of having achieved something, and having done so before even getting out of bed was the icing on the cake. This good feeling has followed me around all day, and now I have been to work, done some sport, eaten well and read a little I'm on top form.

Perversly I'm enjoying being out in the woods a lot more now that autumn is here and the chill wind brings the promise of winter. It's more challenging. No doubt I will rue these words before long when the cold closes in. Or even tonight when the temperature drops. It's currently around 8 degrees C but it gets colder in the small hours of the morning.

Whilst this excursion might well currently be enjoyable it isn't the primary purpose. The reason for doing this is to raise money for Rainforest Comcern, a fine charity. So if you can spare a little cash please sponsor me (click on the link to the left to get to my sponsorship page). If you are not minded to do so then could you forward a link to this page to some friends instead so that they can consider doing so.

Things to do

Collect loads of pine resin for lighting fires in the winter.
Colllect loads of kindling.
Obtain solar pannel and go self sufficient for power.
Build a roof strong enough to support a meter or more of snow.
Buy a winter sleeping bag.
Stop writing blog and take a moment to appreciate my surroundings.

Starting Proper

For most of the summer it had felt as though I have been playing at this woodland living thing. My girlfriend has been staying in my studio on Verbier, the sun has shone and life has been easy. This week I helped the girlfriend move into her apartment in another ski resort where she will be working for a year. Save for the holidays I will only see her at weekends when she comes to stay at "base camp". For me this moment has always been the time when this venture stops being a game and I fully turn my attention to surviving for the winter.

Tonight I am sitting in the shelter assessing what needs to be done. Number one on the list is to find a quick way to make tea. Lighting a fire can be a bit long winded even at the moment, it has been raining so all the wood is wet and I can imagine it taking longer still when I have to fund my firewood under a meter of snow. When it is cold not only will it be harder to light a fire but it will be more important to have a nice warm drink. I will keep using a fire as it is a quintessential part of the woodland experience and handy for keeping warm by. I am a little concerned about using a fire on the shelter as it is built out of things that are very flammable, in fact the only non flammable thing on here is me. I do have a rather groovy paraffin lamp that Mrs Ditch Monkey got me as a house warming present. I have been planning as using it as a heater once there is enough snow to build walls. I got the idea from watching an Inuit heat his igloo with a lamp fired on seal blubber. Apparently such a lamp gives off enough heat to keep the temperature at around freezing point, toasty. Tonight I am giving the theory a test run, having only one wall and thus being exposed on three sides I am not expecting to be warmed by the single flame. I have set the lamp between some rocks and there, where it is sheltered from the breeze, the air is quite warm. The real test has been to make a cup of tea over the flame, if it makes tea then I will want for nothing. The water has been over the flame for a little over an hour and fifteen minutes now, and the water is still only warm. I have been thinking of using a thing called a jet boil, it boils half a litre of water in 90 seconds which is handy but the last one I owned fell apart after a couple of months use, I think I'll have to get one and save it for emergency use only.

I gave up on the lamp as a stove and cooked over a heximine block instead. Tortellini with a stock cube thrown into the water, this flavours the pasta and creates a nutritious drink at the same time - maximum efficiency and minimum requirement for culinary dexterity. So here is something I made for the long suffering Mrs Ditch Monkey the other day, you can try it at home.

I bought a couple of mini pumpkins to make this with but you could use any size pumpkin.

Chop the top off the pumpkin, cut the insides out and put the seeds and all the gubins attached to them to one side. Well, either throw them away or sprinkle them with salt and bake them with the pumpkins to make a nice snack.

Chop up the pumpkin flesh you removed like so

Chop up a small onion and crush a medium sized garlic clove.

Toast a handful of flaked almonds by putting them into a hot dry frying pan and keep moving them about until they go brown. Then tip the nuts out into a bowl, add some olive oil to the pan and return to the heat. Put the onion and garlic into the pan and cook for a couple of minutes before adding in the chopped pumpkin. Sweat the pumpkin down for about three or four minutes then add enough ricotta to make the amount of stuff in the pan fill the hole in the pumpkin(s). Stir it around for a bit, add salt and pepper to taste. You could always add a sniff of cinnamon at this point if you liked. Meanwhile put a large basil leaf into each pumpkin then stuff with the ricotta mix. Put the pumpkin lids back on. Bung em in an oven heated to 180 degrees C until cooked. About 20 minutes for a small one.

Whilst they were cooking I made a fresh tomato sauce by chopping some tomatoes into small bits and letting them cook down with some olive oil, salt and pepper, then adding some basil leaves for the last five minutes of cooking time. Serve with crusty bread, your fave drink and good company.

New Technology,

This is the second night of my writing this blog from the woods via an Ipod. I bought it specifically to use to write the blog as a lap top is too cumbersome and has a short battery life. I found that i jist did not hace time or insperation to write during the day. With this I can write whilst here in the woods and the ipod will automatically email it next time. I have wifi access. It does seem a little incongorous to be sat here typing away on a little hand held touch screen device whilst getting back to nature. Things have come a long way from when I did this Oxford, then I only had a small radio for company, but I did have a job at Sotheby's that required me to sit in front of a computer all day with no work to do. There was plenty of time to write a blog then.
Hopefully this new technology will allow me to write much more regularly, at least until it gets so cold that I have to wear gloves and this can't type any more. Drat, I hadn't thought of that before. Well I'll worry about that when it gets cold.
Things should start to get interesting soon as the night time temperatures are falling, although it is quite mild tonight at 12.2 degrees C so I will not be needing all the extra layers I brought with me.
That's you up to date with the latest technical developments, will write about something interesting tomorrow night. Possibly the ongoing debate about possibly using an old snowboard as part of one of the walls; is this cheating? You never know by tomorrow night i may have thought of something interesting. Fingers crossed.

First signs of autumn

The summer season here in Verbier is drawing to a close, friends are leavimg, not to return till the snow comes. Bars are shutting. As the resort closes down the first chills of autumn replaces the holiday makers, there is a definate cold snap in the air tonight and as I sit here in the dark I am begining to think that I may not have enough warm layers for tonight.

I have just got my sleeping bag out only to discover that the zip is completely broken, in the open position of course so now the sleeping bag is as much use as a thin blanket.

I'm not sure how cold it got last night, it was 8.2 degrees centigrade when I woke at 8.15 and the sun had been up for some time by then so it was a bit nippy last night. I have been fattening myself up over the summer on the basis that my body is probably going to need all the reserves it can get, last night I felt as though I was taking from those reserves for the first time. It's all good though, I'm going to have to get used to the cold at some point.

Bed Building

Breakfast courtesy of nature

As I may have previously mentioned, the woods are not a hugely comfortable place to sleep. I have been putting up with discomfort on the basis that it was probably a good idea to toughen myself up a little before the onset of winter. A couple of days ago I took an executive decision, decided I was not tough enough and set about making a comfortable bed. To my mind, a bed needs to be flat, soft and warm. I am only aware of these required attributes on account of having been trying to sleep without them. The first challenge that I faced was to build a flat platform for the bed. Flattening the ground with a shovel was out of the question on account of the rock sticking out that, on closer inspection, turned out to be the tip of the iceberg. A wooden frame built around the rock and over the dips in the ground would create a flat surface. So I scouted around looking for some long strong straight bits of wood, only to discover that I had used all the local examples of such in making the roof. It took a lot less time to take the roof down than it had to put it up and soon I had a rough frame for the bed laid out on the ground and propped up at one end with a rock.

Next, I lay lots of sticks on top (see photo below), followed by some spruce bows, of which I forgot to take a photograph. I only took bows from a tree that had already fallen down as I thought chopping trees down wasn’t in keeping with the whole ethos of the venture. So I was left with a bed that was essentially a pile of sticks with some thinner sticks on top. It was not very soft.

I knew that one of the three vital attributes of a fully functioning bed was softness; I was going to have to find some. I figured that spruce bows layed thickly enough would create a reaasonable level of softness. I would need to find another recently fallen tree. As I walked around the forest, I noticed the ground beneath my feet was all springy and soft. It turned out I was standing on a big rock that was covered in a thick layer of moss, and furthermore that that layer of moss peeled away really easily. So, within half an hour I had a thick layer of moss covering the bed. It was time for a test run. I tentatively lay down, half expecting the entire structure to collapse, pitching me down the mountain side. But it held firm and remarkably it turned out to be flat on the first build, though perhaps a little lumpy. This was nothing a little re-organising of moss wouldn’t sort out. Best of all the moss is soft enough to be a pleasure to lie on. The whole structure also acts as fantastic insulation from the ground so that, for the moment at least, I’m nice and warm at night in only my summer sleeping bag.

mmmmm comfort

However...

There was a massive thunder storm last night and you may recall that I took the roof down to make the bed. I discovered that a properly functioning bed has four attributes; the fourth being dryness.

Ninjas and Berries

It has been a while since I wrote so I best give you an update on developments. The mountain is as steep as ever which is resulting in my building up some muscles in unusual places, such as along my shin bone. Fortunately the mountain side is virtually awash with wild strawberries, raspberries and blueberries so the walk to work or home is punctuated with breaks to fill up with fruit. Apparently there are a lot of wild mushrooms, specifically chanterelles and ceps but I have seen neither yet but have eaten lots in a local restaurant but was disapointed to find discover that their mushrooms were brought in from Eastern Europe rather than from the adjacent forest.

Currently the weather is hot, constant blue skies with the day time temperature in the high 20s to low 30s during the day yet it is still cold at night. There is a feeling, at least amongst my friends, that we have had enough of summer now and it ought to start snowing pretty soon so we can go out for a slide on the mountain. However, summer seems fairly relentless and, not having been in the Alps at this time of year before, I do not know what signs would indicate the changing of the season. Certainly 99% of the trees here are coniferous so there is no tell tale leaves turning to brown. Further down the valley there are many more deciduous trees so by looking accross the valley to the side of the mountains opposite which seems to stick up almost vertically it is possible to make out perhaps the first signs of autumn. Looking at the trees there is like looking at the top of a head of broccoli and one can just make out a few dark spots, as though the broccoli was starting to go off, I assume each of these dark spots is a tree whose leaves are starting to go brown. For now though it is still August, it's nice and warm and I suspect I shall come to regrett wishing for winter to come quickly.

In expectation of the coming winter I have bought a one piece snowboarding suit to use as a pyjama during the winter, pictured bellow, I think I look like a ninja but apparently I look like an idiot.

I'm back, lucky you.

Hello

So I went to the UK for a holiday, it rained, drove back through France, it rained, got back to Switzerland, it was raining, went back to work and the sun came out. Sorry not to have been writing recently but I've brought my girlfriend back with me and I've not really spent any time with her since before Christmas so I've been giving her my attention rather than the blog.

Normal services will now be resumed.

You'll be glad to hear that you have not missed much. I did manage to get the long suffering girlfriend to come out to the woods, the promise of wine, starlight and picnics will work miracles I find. Curiously there is nothing that will tempt her to come out to stay in the middle of winter.

Holiday

Sorry about the dull blogging at the moment, I haven't quite hit my stride yet. A combination of being busy and not sleeping very much has left me a little brain dead and short of time. I'm sure this is only a temporary state of affairs, I go on holiday on Thursday so soon I'll be back to being brain dead with plenty of time.

It seems that what I thought were wolves howling in the night was in fact huskies, this is a commonly held belief of sniggering people WHO WERE NOT THERE and therefore don't know. The fact that there are huskies living roughly where I heard the howling coming from proves nothing.

In August the woods are thick with hunters and it is strongly advisable not to go walking in them for fear of being shot. Might have to re-think my sleeping arrangements in August then. Either that or walk about the place wearing a fluorescent orange bib and frankly there are limits to what one is prepared to do to raise money for charity.

Holiday involves vineyards and collecting as many tea bags as I can from the UK.

banging on about being uncomfortable again. Get a grip dude.

Note big rock to left offering protection from weather assuming weather comes from the left.

I spent the first portion of last night sitting by a fire and having a very nice evening. Then I went to bed and spent the rest of the night ruing my decision not to make a bed, eventually I gave up on trying to sleep where I was and opted for a nearby flat but exposed piece of ground. Do you remember when you were small, one of the first things that had to be done upon being placed in a sleeping bag was to hop about the place as if taking part in a sack race. Well I'm not sure I can recommend doing so in the woods, in the dark, whilst very tired, I suppose if it had not been dark and I had not been so tired I might have given more thought to the fact that I was in the woods. As it was I had no little difficulty in ascending the near vertical slope covered in fallen trees and and the big pile of wood I have collected to make the roof with. However, I'm not bruised and I did eventually reach somewhere that was flat enough to sleep on. It is of course tempting to build a shelter on the flat ground but it is very exposed and offers precious little in protection from falling trees.

conclusion

tired, very tired, probably not speaking much sense.

cold

Home sweet home

A. Pile of twigs hopefully placed to prevent sleeper rolling into abyss.

B. Wolf dissuasion system

C.Thin end of fallen tree, other tree not shown

D. Tree feature, prevents sleeper rolling into abyss, suggest using in conjunction with twigs

E. Rock feature / seat. Based on an original design by Easy Jet

It snowed the night before last, not on me but higher up, last night was cold but there were no signs of snow. Having no work to do permitted me to stay in bed until midday, this was only partly to do with being tired and more to do with it being too cold to get up, I think I'm going to have to get used to this getting up in the cold thing.

The main issue at the moment is getting enough sleep. I have found that filling one of the gaps in the floor with twigs makes me more comfortable and also helps me avoid rolling off the very narrow area of flat ground and onto the 45 degree slope covered in rocks. Of course I still have to jam by knees into the tree to stop me rolling down the hill but I'm not quite so reliant on this now. It has been suggested that I level the ground with a shovel, a fine theory but one that sadly does not account for the outcrop from the rock that shelters me and stands clear of the ground by a good five feet. I suppose the rock could be chiseled through and the roots, some of which are as thick as my arm could be sawed through but not only would chopping through roots kind of defeat the purpose of the exercise it would, more importantly, weaken the tree small tree it is attached too to the extent that it would probably fall, on me. The level of top soil here is so thin that the forest is littered with fallen trees, there roots having been spread across the rocky ground rather than going deep offer little protection. Today I followed a trail of five fallen trees, one having been toppled by being hit by another and so on. So the rock that I live by not only protects me from the wind on one side and provides me with an amusingly bumpy bed it also offers some protection from falling trees. The fact that there are already two trees that have fallen on it gives me some comfort in as much as there can't be that many more to hit it. Then again, as the saying goes "whoever said lightening never strikes the same place twice doesn't know very much about lightening.

So the order of the day today was to construct some form of flat sleeping surface, I had a design in mind and even a name, a bed. This "bed" would be made by hacking some bits of wood into various lengths with an axe, hammering a few sharpened bit of wood into the ground to hold it in place and covering the lot with soft looking things from the surrounding area. Simple. Once I had got up, forrgotten about spending the night shivering and had a couple of cups of tea I decided it would be more sensible to build a roof instead. The roof is going to have to hold the weight of a lot of snow that will become compacted and turn to ice as more snow falls on top, that's going to be a lot of weight so it's best to get that built properly I think.

In other news, a wolf or wolves killed 22 sheep in Chablais which is not very far from here. However, further research on the wolf question has revealed that there are only eight, possibly nine, wolves in the country and although most of them live around here I think I am unlikely to be lucky enough to see one.