by Ronald Turnbull
Book published by Cicerone Press
A guidebook on bivvybag skills and expeditions.
Accounts of bivvybag nights and expeditions, both nice and nasty, alternate with practical chapters on lightweight kit.
Finally a selection of bivvybag expeditions.
Hilarious (and informative) reading!
An updated second edition.
The Book of The Bivvy is a half-and-half mix of how to do it and why to do it (or how not to do it, and why not to do it). Accounts of bivvybag nights and expeditions, both nice and nasty, alternate with practical chapters about the technicalities of the breathable membrane, how little kit you really can get away with and the secrets of lightweight long distance. The book closes with a selection of bivvybag expeditions to initiate the unwary into the secrets.
"It was the best of nightsÂ….it was the worst of nights" (Unattributed)
Just where are the half a million bivvybags sold in Britain over recent years? Probably waiting for Ronald Turnbull to show the nervous virgin users the way forward.
Ronald's informed, humorous, instructive, wry look at the world of the bivouac is certainly the first, and perhaps the last, word on this unexplored territory.
Along the way Ronald shows that 1900 to 1969 was the dark age of the bivouac, how Diogenes (the Cynic) bivvied under timber, and that the Eiger was climbed only through improved bivvying technique.
"It's not what you eat, it's where you eat it."
One grateful reader writes "Thank you for writing the book of the bivvy. I bivvied out near Capel Curig, alone in my ex-British army bivvy bag...even though it was August Bank holiday I saw no-one between 6pm Friday and 10.30am on Saturday, and had no trouble finding accommodation. I hope to do this often - my only regret is not trying it sooner."
Seasons
Any season.
Centres
Suggested bivvybag routes in the Lake District around Skiddaw, BruceÂ’s Crown in the Galloway Hills, a circuit of the Pennines between Settle and Hexham, and a crossing of Pumlumon Fawr between Church Stretton, Shropshire and Aberystwyth.
Difficulty
Suggested routes are mainly long, across hill-country.
Must See
The fun of ‘doing it’.
- ISBN: 9781852845612
- Availability: Published
- Published: 19 Oct 2007
- Reprinted: 11 Apr 2019
- Edition: Second
- Pages: 144
- Size: 17.2 x 11.6 x 1.0cm
- Weight: 180g