Whilst the other sad, antisocial loners stayed behind in the chalet, drinking beer, eating pizza and checking out the day's downhill headcam footage, I strapped a drybag to my bars and headed out a few kilometres up (and down!) the trails a further 500m of altitude up into the mountains...
As I didn't have a bar harness thingy I mounted the bag on top of the bars to avoid wearing a hole in the dry bag. That was okay until the first saddle dropping techy descent when all I could see in front of me was a big red blobby thing.
After about two and a half hours of pedalling and hike-a-bike I broke the treeline and spotted a refuge in the distance. However, as I didn't have a spare 40 odd euros on me (they ain't cheap to stay at these days) I knew I was commited to a night out under the stars...
Initially, I chose a patch of grass by a small lake to unroll (inflate) my sleeping mat for the night. However, the action of biting insects upon my flesh forced me to backtrack a kilometre or so and bed down next to some old shepherds' huts I'd passed on the way up...
Presently, the skys darkened and the clouds began to roll down the mountain....
I crawled into my bivi bag and eventually dozed off to the sound of cow bells gently ringing further down the valley. However, a few hours later I was rudely awakend by the massive full moon glaring through now clear skies and the louder ringing of the cows' bells who'd moved further up the valley. This went on for some hours, seriously disrupting my kip. In the end I slithered down into the bivi bag to block out the moonlight and muffle my ears, waking up just before dawn in a sleeping bag somwhat moistened by my condensed breath.
I packed up by moonlight, and headed off back down the valley just as the first glimmers of dawn began to show over the Italian side of the mountains.
Our posse had a long Alpine ride ahead of us later that day, with a fair bit of steep uphill cycling and I'd had a poor night's sleep and had a bit of pushing & climbing to do on the return journey. Luckily, when I got back to the chalet, several of the gang had pretty bad hangovers from the previous night's shenanigans so that kind of levelled the playing field. And the moon was slowly setting over the mountains in front of the chalet.....
So, there you go, a high altitude alpine bivi with stunning, moonlit views, a musical accompaniment, a nice ride through the forests to get there and bugger all sleep. Perfect.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8308384@N0 ... 6159110867
