LOST On My first SOLO Hike | Winter Van Life ALONE [ep 1]

Welcome to, welcome to the channel. Welcome to my video. It is a very, very, very cold start to the day here in Scotland. We're in the Highlands. We are on the edge of a lock. I've just been out to get some drone footage cause it's pretty stunning out. The sun has just risen over the mountains and it's glorious. It was raining all day here yesterday. So to have a nice morning that's very still, the lock out there is like a nil pond. Yeah, it's pretty good. It's pretty good. Let's go out and enjoy it together and then we can, uh, we can talk some more. It's that cold. You can actually see the edge of the lock starting to freeze up here this morning. This is what it was doing the other morning. So it's so cold. The edge of the lock here. It's starting to freeze up. You can get the little bits of frost forming on the edge of the rock and down here as well. There was more the other morning. It was a lot colder. So it was out to about there. Um, and it was frozen all the way along, which is really cool. So, but it's absolutely glorious out here. Absolutely glorious. Look at that. So my exposure out and all you can hear is this little stream coming down here and today we're traveling down, going to drive down the end of this lock here to where those mountains are and we're going to be going up the other side of those mountains. There is a mountain that we're going to be climbing today. It's not one of those, but it's just around the corner. There's a single track road that long runs alongside of this road and goes for about three, four miles. We're going to, um, we're going to drive along there. You're going to find the trail ahead and then we're going to go for a little hike today. It should be good. Wow. The sun has just literally come up behind the mountains. Wow. Look at that. But the time is getting on. I'd like to stay here and enjoy it, but the time is getting on and we need to get on the trail because it's by no means a short hike today. So I would like to be on the way sooner rather than later. So let's get to it. And if you're new here, welcome. My name is John. I live and work and travel full time in the back of my self converted camper van. So this is my van. I'll probably do a little van tour or something, you know, um, at some point, but, uh, yeah, this is my, this is my little space. So I have my desk set up here where I work from, obviously bed kitchen. I have a sofa here and, uh, but this normally just gets used for as a dumping ground storage, camera bag, whatever, whatever goes. Um, I have an area up the top here as well, which is good for my cab blinds and blankets and camera bag and all that good stuff. So it's a really cozy little space. I love it. And, uh, I can tell you more on the van cause I've definitely got some stories. It's definitely not been a straightforward process, but, uh, how it is at the moment, it's been finished like this for probably a little over six months. Uh, and I'm very, very happy with it. So still adding a few things here and there, like this is new. I put this up the other day cause I was like I needed somewhere to put my hats and, you know, walking poles and stuff like that. So, um, I can just kind of grab and go. So that was a kind of a new addition, but yeah, we've got the electrics over here. We've got the heater, um, temperature, all that good stuff. We've got CCTV up here, which is turned off at the moment just cause I'm saving power. All my switches for Starlink and my water pump and stuff. There's some loose cables up here actually. I need to, I've got some, uh, charges I need to stick up there. So, um, I need to get that done. I'm very pleased with it. I'm very pleased with it, but that's enough on the van. We need to hit the road. We need to get going because we need to get on this hike. So I am going to defog the front windscreen cause that's all messed it up and start getting some stuff packed away. And then we can, uh, then we can get going. All right, I'm just going to take it really slowly along this road because it's still frozen. I'm just going to have a nice little trundle along here. Looks like there's been one car come down here this morning. I can see one set of tracks through the ice on the road. Glorious. Just getting my first glimpse of the mountain here. That's spectacular. We've definitely picked the right day for the hike. Yeah. So I was, I was way out seven miles. It is along this road. So it's taken us, it's going to take us about half an hour to do seven miles. It's like a little rollercoaster. The road is just up and down like this all the way. So, and they're just beautiful. Let's put in our remaining time at five hours, 11, 12.9 miles. That's our route today. So let's see how we go. Finish my coffee up and then we're good to go. I'm excited. I was really hoping today was going to be a good day as well, like weather wise. Wouldn't have mattered if there was a bit of cloud, but it's always nice when you get out onto the hills, into the mountains, if you can see a bit of a view and today is a, I think they call it a bluebird day. I think that's what they call it. In skiing or in snow sports anyway. I'm sure I've heard the term bluebird. It's a bluebird day where it's like blue sky, completely white everywhere. I don't know. I might be talking complete nonsense, but anyway, it's, um, it's glorious. Absolutely glorious as morning. Oh, look, there's some stags over there and we're going to walk past them in a minute. Right. Let's rock and roll. Look at how these puddles have frozen. It's like, it's like a tree. It's like they've frozen in like, you know, little bits at a time. You can see the middle is quite, if I can get my poles. It's frozen. Look at this one. It looks like a tree. You know, with the rings. So cool. Wow. You just come out of the woodland and you just got little mountain views like that. Snowy peaks. We've just come from down there and we're going down here. Oh, I think I can see where the trail comes out. Yeah. Look up there. Look, it's just these like waterfalls. These channels form all through the woodland and it's incredible. And it's just blankets and blankets and moss, um, all the way through. Oh, come on, dude. Wow. Put my walking poles down. So this is where we come from. And over there is the Glendisery house. It doesn't look that big, but it's quite big from what I can see on the internet. It's about a, I don't know, six to eight bedroom, I think. I think I said 12 earlier, but I think it's more like six to eight. I think you can have up to 12 people. I think that's what it is. Um, for like a private wedding or something like that. So, but it's in the middle of nowhere. Cause this mountain, we were parked right round the other side and about seven miles down the lock that way. So we've come, you know, I mean, we're literally in the middle of nowhere right now. When I said I wanted to do van life, like this is, this is what I wanted. I wanted to get a van, drive to the middle of nowhere and just hike mountains. And now we're doing it. All right. Now I'm a bit confused. There's the boffy. Oh wow. Okay. We've got two houses. I think I see, ah, there's Glendittery house. And that's the other one. That's another, that's like an old forestry house, I think. All right. So that's the boffy. There's the boffy, which you can stay in. So you walk down, I assume. Yeah. You walk down the side of the forestry track and then you can go and stay in the boffy there. So we'll have a look at that on the way back. And then you've got the house there. Glendittery though, is that one way up in the distance over there? I'm not sure it's going to come out on the camera, but that's Glendittery, which I mean, geez Louise, a stunning view. Right now we need to find out where we're going and I'm starting to get a bit cold. So I need to put my jacket on. Okay. So I've got nothing on all trails. Where's the ordnance survey? Oh, ordnance survey is asking me to go back. So the trail must be up on there. I didn't see a trail. Maybe I missed it through getting so taken up with the view. God, that's a climb. Where's the trail then? It's not along the tree line. Huh. All right. Let's walk around a bit and see if we can see it. What I'm not going to do is just walk, walk straight off and into that lot. Cause uh, it's no fun when you've not got any trail at all. And I'm not prepared to do that. A, I don't fancy getting lost. B, I'm not as fit at the moment. And C, I've got no Garmin or anything on me. So if I do need to call for help, I've got no signal, no SOS, nothing. So yeah, we'll go around here and we'll see if there's a trail. If not, we'll take a walk down to the bothy, go and check that out. And then we'll, uh, we'll head back. Cause it's like one o'clock anyway. I need to have lunch in a minute. It almost looks like there's a trail there, but, but there isn't. Strange. Like I say, this wasn't on, this wasn't on all trails either. This is, uh, this is just on ordnance survey, but it's not showing the trail. There's a couple of deer over there. There's obviously where they feed them. You've got their hay in that. Well, I can't see this trail. I don't know what we're going to do. I'm just in awe at this view. It's glorious. Let me put my sunglasses on. Look at it. Just absolutely stunning. It's breathtaking. Got a couple of stags up here as well. Well, I don't know what we're going to do cause there's no path. There's no trail that goes up. All right. We're going back up to where I came out of the forest. Going to check up by that tree line because ordnance survey is telling me that there's a trail that goes, that follows that tree line all the way to the top. So we're going to go back and if I can't find it, I'm not going to attempt it. I'm going to be sensible. I'm not sure if I finished trying to say what I was saying earlier as well, um, about this video. So John in the edit feel free to cut this out if I'm repeating myself. But I think what I was getting at was it's taking me so long just to get started and just to do the thing that I've wanted to do. But I'm such a perfectionist and I'm so like, I want everything to be perfect. I want every shot that I try and capture to be right. I want the audio to be right. I want the color grade to be right. Locations to be right. Like, and I have to, I have to just settle for just creating something right now and getting something out there because otherwise I'm never going to put anything out there. So this video might be a complete muddle of a bunch of different shots and me talking and who knows what, but I'm just trying, I'm trying to put myself out there. I'm trying to try and take action. That's the only way to get over, like feeling the way I do about it all and feeling with the anxiety and all that comes with that about putting yourself online is just to take action and move forward. So, all right, let's see if I can find this trailhead. I cannot begin to tell you how hard that is. That's where we come from. So we went back to the tree line. There's a path down there and we've basically hiked the tree line all the way up because that is the route that it shows on all trails. OS maps even. It's just like serious elevation. We're climbing like 1500 feet in less than a mile. It's a lot, but we're going to make it. I'm nearly at the top. I haven't turned the camera on in like an hour and a half because that's where we've come from. I can't begin to emphasize how steep that is and it's all over just grass or snow. There's no actual path. So every step you go to take because it's snow and it's like soft mountain grass. You sink like a foot into the snow. I'm not going to have any quads left after this. I wanted to turn my camera on though because I'm almost at the top and I can just see a mountain over there and some of the view. Oh my God. That's so hard. I can't wait to stop and have something to eat. There's the breeze. It's incredible. So that's where we come from. You can just about see the house down there in the distance. In the far distance over there is the, it's the lock where we stayed along. There's mountains in the distance and this is the one I was capturing earlier. Look at that view. It's incredible. I think we should go up there and then assess the route and decide whether we're going to decide whether we're going to carry on or whether we're going to turn back. I can't believe I actually made it. I've just been thinking about what to do because filming has taken quite a lot of time today. I can't see anything. It's so bright. Oh, that's better. Wow. Yeah. Filming has taken quite a bit of time today and it's already three o'clock a day like this. I've probably got till six before we lose the light. Now I don't want to be out after dark because I haven't got a head torch or anything on me. So we've got three hours. It's taken us the best part of five to get here between four and five. Obviously that's all uphill, but I think just because I know the route, I think we'll go back the way we came. What I don't want to do is head up over that peak there and down the other side and not know the terrain. Cause if I go over there, we've got another four or five hours of hike, but I don't know how much of that I know you've got to go down and up again. So we could be out here till nine, 10 o'clock. I'm not doing that. I'm going to save the rest of those and have those on the way down. I've got some dates to have. No, prunes. You've got to love these for a bit of energy. They're so good. It's like replaced everything sweet for me at the moment. Bit of clouds rolled in now.