Bivy verus tent in the Highlands

[Will N To]

Hi, I'm a yank from California where the only annoying insects are killer bees-and they're just not interested. I'm headed your way in a couple months and wonder: Bivy or Tent?
I'm guessing these are the issues: Wind (& temperature),midges, rain.
Should I expect wanting some 'indoor' space out of the wind and midges, over mostly using using a tent or bivy as a place to sleep? Or do trekkers spend enough time inside a tent to make a bivy a false savings? Which do you prefer?

Much appreciated,

Will
ps I've already got the hat mesh.

[Ben Nachie]

For me it's tent every time, and I've been walking and camping in Scotland for over 30 years.

Bivvies have a couple of potential advantages. You can plonk yourself down pretty much anywhere in a bivvy whereas a tent requires a reasonable bit of ground for a pitch. Bivvies are theoretically lighter, however there are quite a few tents now that are lighter than some hooped bivvies.

Personally though, I'd say the advantages of a decent tent far outweigh the advantages of a bivvy. YMMV.

[Robinho08]

I've gone for one of your American made MLD Trailstar tarps. Need a bug net in the summer months for the dreaded midge.

[crfishwick]

Hi, I'm a yank from California where the only annoying insects are killer bees-and they're just not interested. I'm headed your way in a couple months and wonder: Bivy or Tent?
I'm guessing these are the issues: Wind (& temperature),midges, rain.
Should I expect wanting some 'indoor' space out of the wind and midges, over mostly using using a tent or bivy as a place to sleep? Or do trekkers spend enough time inside a tent to make a bivy a false savings? Which do you prefer?

Much appreciated,

Will
ps I've already got the hat mesh.

Tent every time especially between late May to September and into October in some years! The Wee beasties are a nightmare if you use a bivvy. Plus with a tent you can "cook" inside the porch of a tent. With a bivvy outside although a midge coat or net helps plus gloves and ladies tights

Also those so called hooped bivvies weigh more than my tent (laser)! Can't see the point myself.

[Will N To]

Thank you all for the informed information.
So gloves for the dreaded midges? Yikes. Cotton ones enough? Long sleeves, cinched pant legs
Tent Okay.
The comment about bivys weighing more than tents. The super light tents look terrific, but costly. I'd spend the money, but I'm still Buridan's Ass between Bivy-Hammock-Tent, for my usual places in the western US.
For the Highlands I'm following your advice. I've got a lightweight 2 person BigAgnes--so I should just stop my whining and get on with it.

When cooking in the vestibule, what are the midges doing? Do I need a mesh cover for the vestibule? (I've got a sewing machine so I could whip something almost weightless.) Are the little beasties clever enough to climb along the ground under the bottom edge?

(I should also just figure out how to wrap the tent up like a bivy. We all know what a bivy sack is, but what it really is, 1. a sack covering 7/8 of your sleeping bag, and 2. a mesh 'bubble' around your head, that is protected from rain and wind. So, for those cowboy set-ups: at dusk, up and gone at dawn: There ought to be a way to just wrap the tent in the ground cloth, insert sleeping bag and air mattress, prop up the mesh door, crawl in, nod off. )

[Alteknacker]

Thank you all for the informed information.
So gloves for the dreaded midges? Yikes. Cotton ones enough? Long sleeves, cinched pant legs
Tent Okay. ...

The midges are pretty serious. My tactic to date has been: mesh head cover (difficult if you want to drink a beer at the end of the day!); tight pant legs and wrists; strong insecticide on hands. But I recently bought a midge mesh jacket, on seeing it recommended on this forum, and also hearing from folk that the gamekeepers tend to wear them these days.

Even if you're well prepared as above, a key issue is getting in and out of your tent. It's easy to let in literally hundreds of the beasties as you do so.... . I haven't found an answer that I've tried out yet, but after I wrote this in a blog last year:

Back at the tent, the breeze has dropped, and the bloodthirsty billions are ready and waiting....



But I'm prepared with a head net and spray for the hands. The only problem is that just getting into the tent allows hundreds of the blighters to sneak in with me . So I spend the next 30 minutes in sadistic pleasure squashing them against the tent inner.

....I got the following comments proposing a combat strategy:

"As for squishing midges we find burning pyrethrum (sp?) coils in the tent is the fastest (and laziest) way of getting shot of them."

"Just an addendum to the midge coils in tents, we burn them inside the flysheet rather than in the tent itself. An inclination to asthma makes this a better option."

I plan to try it out this year.

Enjoy Scotland whatever the midgies are doing - It's a truly wonderful place!

[rabthecairnterrier]

As other have said midges can be a nightmare. The only solution is to cover up as much as you can. For summer camping I always have a mesh net/hood, a light windproof top with good seals at neck/cuffs, thin fingerless gloves, and light trousers (pants to you) that can be tucked into socks (or ankle length gaiters). Once you have finished doing anything you need to do outside, get into the inner tent and zip it up. Yes, some of the midges will get in with you, but if you are careful not in sufficient numbers to cause any real misery. It's worth noting that light colours are preferable for clothing as midges are more attracted to dark shades. Unfortunately midges tend to be most active early morning and late evening, exactly those times when you will be in camp. Bivvying can be immensely rewarding in Scotland given the right conditions - no rain, enough wind (but not too much) to suppress midges, especially high up - unfortunately the right conditions don't come along too often. Go for a tent.

[crfishwick]

Forgot to say, I spray my tent all over with an insecticide. This kills the nasties between the inner and outer. Millions of the blighters. I think it is Permethrin from Lifesystems (Ex-4 AntiMosquito spray). Plus their Portable Mosquito Killer in the porch!

But still get bitten. I seem to attract them in my old age. They never used to bother me. They seem to be getting immune to all the anti midge sprays on the market.

Could make a fortune if I could produce one that works 100%

[Will N To]

The photo. Yikes! Trying to scare me away?
Insecticide, good tip. I used to use pyrethrin on my dog for fleas, the bottle would leak all over my hands. Yucky, sticky, but fairly safe. So I'll spray my gear with it. Good plan. Anyone hiking behind me should get fewer midges.
Should I get or sew a mesh midge jacket? I'll wear a long sleeve shirt, but it's not hermetically sealed.
The recommendations for lightweight tents: I bookmarked them. Today while trying to figure out the best way to reinforce my hex-fly against wear from my trekking poles I happened again upon the TarpTent site. Looking at the video for setting up the StratoSpire, it's just brilliant. So simple. But can I afford another tent?
I'm a bit slow, but I finally realized I could just leave my BigAgnes rainfly at home and use the hextarp with the BigAgnes inner-part, and my trekking poles. More vestibule space, more options for opening it up for the view, fewer limitations.
Midge solution? Spray all the sheep, deer, tourists, Ben Nevis with pyrethrin?

[mrssanta]

ways to avoid midges: camp high up where there is a bit of breeze. they like damp, still air and low light so they tend to come out at dusk. they don't like the cold, so they tend not to be active between about mid-september and late May. they are attracted by carbon dioxide, so sitting in your tent bell cooking is not such a good idea. Unless it is really wet it is better to do your cooking outside (also thereby avoiding carbon monoxide poisoning) and keep yourself moving. Don't expect a nice sit-outside-at -dusk type picnic. Unless you can find a bit of breeze. One advantage of a good heavy rain is the midges cannot fly in it. They really like the damp though. So boggy areas with deep vegetation (heather or grass) are lovely for them. And in my opinion the best midge repellant is Smidge which does not rot your plastic clothing and glasses. You can buy it in most parts of rural Scotland. and it smells better than DEET. I've never sprayed my gear with permethrin and i am not sure whether this would help or not.
Also remember that US mozzy nets might not be 100% midge proof as these blighters are REALLY SMALL. so make sure and check. I have never used a tarptent so I cannot comment but any tent intended for the UK market should have midge proof net.
I'd always take a tent not a bivy because of the midges (and rain)
But please do come! you can't beat camping on a ridge or up in a corrie and waking up in the night looking at the stars

[GillSte]

For me, it's a tent every time. Keeps the rain, wind and/or midges out, and the warmth and dryness in. The best way to keep the midges off is to use DEET on yourself. For cooking, it's best to sit in the tent but with the stove just outside the tent, and burning a mosquito coil at the entrance of the tent while you're cooking. You won't be bothered and there should be no need for gloves or head nets. Keep the midge net zipped up the rest of the time and you'll be fine. The midge hood won't be needed, until you go away from the tent to answer calls of nature etc. Such activities are best left until the sun is high in the sky; midges do not like sunshine, so they are most active at dawn and dusk. 04.00 on a summer's morning is not a nice time of day to be outside.

[Will N To]

The size of my mesh.... I need to look into that. I had a tent I bought at Target for camping the family on a North Carolina beach. Little monsters were going through it like it wasn't there.

How's "extra fine mesh (300 holes/inch2)" ???
Thats 17.3 x 17.3.
(Below recommends) 20x30 is 600 holes/inch. I think my "PREMIUM MOSQUITO HEAD NET" is just another trick of the Albion Midge Conspiracy.
Anyone have a Big Agnes Tent in Midgeland?

"Practice has shown that in order to be effective a 30 x 20 mesh should be used to keep out these insects. This means that in one square inch there will be 30 holes one way and 20 the other (making each hole about 0.9mm x 0.5 mm). Some suppliers offer a 20 x 20 mesh but customer experience questions about the efficiency of this size. A 30 x 20 mesh on the other hand offers complete protection against midges in the home and still allows free-flowing air at 47%."
(not allowed to post links cause I'm a noob. )

[Will N To]

More information. I tried figuring out a way to judge the size of the holes in the various meshes I have on my gear.
The holes on the better meshes are triangles, a range of sizes. If I knew the weaving pattern I could make it in Illustrator, then shrink it down, print it out and lay the mesh over the top. I could also take a photo.
1. What worked best: Making a grid of 30 x 20 boxes then resizing it to 1" x 1"
2. Laying the mesh over the top of the grid makes it pretty easy to just see, no counting needed. I found it Impossible to make it flat. What would work is to use a piece of glass. A microscope slide?
3. Look through a loupe. My 100x microscope magnified too much, so I wound up using a macro lens.
As I am or was a professional photography with a great deal of technical knowledge, experience and equipment....I hand held the whole business-- lit it with a torch. The photos are terrible, barely usable, but usable.
My Big Agnes Tent mesh and the Noseeum I got from RipStopbyMail appear to have about 4-6 little gaps in each of the 600 holes/inch grid. Should be good-possibly 2400 holes/inch^2 maybe better.
My hat net however has larger hexagonal holes and these appear close enough to the advertised 300 holes per inch, which means I should bother bringing them. This is a bit better than the standard recommended by the Save The Highlands Midge Foundation which recommends: "Mesh one hundred holes per inch or larger would be just fine sucker; naked, drunk and passed out we like even better."
I've got mesh on an REI Minimalist Bivy. The instructions say you need to leave the zippers open a bit to breathe. Seems kind of pointless, huh. What I discovered is that in my living room, the bag was indeed stifling, outside: breeze or no breeze it was never a problem.

[crfishwick]

The size of my mesh.... I need to look into that. I had a tent I bought at Target for camping the family on a North Carolina beach. Little monsters were going through it like it wasn't there.

How's "extra fine mesh (300 holes/inch2)" ???
Thats 17.3 x 17.3.
(Below recommends) 20x30 is 600 holes/inch. I think my "PREMIUM MOSQUITO HEAD NET" is just another trick of the Albion Midge Conspiracy.
Anyone have a Big Agnes Tent in Midgeland?

"Practice has shown that in order to be effective a 30 x 20 mesh should be used to keep out these insects. This means that in one square inch there will be 30 holes one way and 20 the other (making each hole about 0.9mm x 0.5 mm). Some suppliers offer a 20 x 20 mesh but customer experience questions about the efficiency of this size. A 30 x 20 mesh on the other hand offers complete protection against midges in the home and still allows free-flowing air at 47%."
(not allowed to post links cause I'm a noob. )

Is this a wind up?
For Scottish midges the smallest mesh size the better in a tent. As for midge nets the smallest mesh that can be seen through by a human seems logical IMHO.

[Will N To]

What is the mesh quality on hat/head mesh available in the UK? Is it the same alleged 300 holes/inch^2 (Looks like little hexagons) or the smaller holes of noseeum -- looks like horizontal zigzags with diagonal nylon threads, almost impossible to see with out magnification. These are about 2400 holes/inch^2.

I don't know whether to sew my own or wait and buy one in the Motherland of Midge Terror.

(Is my attempt to mask my trepidation with humor okay? I don't want to get picked up by MI-5 when I arrive (Midge Intelligence, Section 5 which covers tourists as a food source).

Thanks,