I am starting to plan our summer motorhome trip to Scotland and it got me thinking about motorhome parking for SOTA activations in general across the UK. Not necessarily overnight camping just accessible parking.
I know that some of the detail for any given summit may give some clue as to the parking situation, along with the usual Google Earth and street view research.
However, it would be great to be able plan a parts of a motorhome trip around the summits where it is possible to a park a motorhome for the duration of an activation.
So let me start the ball rolling and let’s see if the topic will fly
Pen y Fan GW/SW-001 and Fan Fawr GW/SW-005
Pont ar Daf car park (access to Pen y Fan), Near Storey Arms, Libanus, Powys, LD3 8NL
Parking at the Pen y Fan National Trust carpark could easily accommodate motorhomes up to 8m and possibly longer.
Daily charge at time of writing is £7.50, not sure if it is still free for NT members
The website states open 24 hours but no overnight camping.
Thank you - I quite often find planning where to safely park an interesting challenge. A significant number of car parks now have height barriers and parking spaces that seem designed for a Ford Anglia!
Locally G/NP-003 (Burnhope Seat) and G/NP-024 (Hoove) are easy and they might make a welcome distraction on the way north as would G/NP-027 (Dufton Pike) - all with easy no height restricted barriers and ample space.
One other thing to consider is any width restriction. My panel van (Base vehicle is a Ducatto) is 6ft 8 ins wide and a significant number of Lake District roads, for instance to Honister are width restricted to 6 ft 6 but this seems widely ignored. I’m fairly sure this is because of traffic problems on the road not that bigger vehicles don’t fit. I haven’t really been able to find a good way of identifying these restrictions other than using Google Maps and looking at the junctions!
The hills that I would struggle with the camper would include Whitfell (G/LD-032) as I am fairly sure Corney Fell is width restricted, getting to Loweswater for the surrounding hills, - again width restrictions, but to be honest parking is difficult and or expensive even for a car in the popular part of the Lake District in summer!
Last year I toured the Outer Hebrides and parking in the camper was planned in advance with Google Maps. There were a couple of hills I ended up not doing at least partly because I couldn’t find anywhere sensible to park a 6m van, but the vast majority were fine. I didn’t have any problems, in fact everyone was very friendly if a little confused as to why I wanted to walk up a hill with a radio… but a I am aware that due to some poor behaviour by people in campers (sewage…) vans are not always welcome everywhere, although this has probably been exaggerated by social media.
Agree Google and street view is great but not the full picture. We cancelled a small site last summer because it didn’t look like we were getting under the trees on Google with the roof in tact at 2.8m high, it could have been a long reverse back on a narrow track
Corney is closed for the foreseeable future, this is due to a problem with the steel bridge. (Buckbarrow Bridge) Prior to that the limit was 3.5T not the dimensions of the vehicle.
I think the council is putting off the replacement of the bridge, shortage of cash !
I used the route regularly to access my UKAC contest site.
None of the LD fell roads are suitable for camper vans really. sure, you might fit but nobody else will. Less than ideal around Wasdale, Ennerdale, Buttermere and Loweswater. They just take up too much space. Even modern cars (which seem to get wider annually) aren’t great. Especially when people park on the roadsides.
Quite a lot of the LD summits have good public transport now (park and ride for Wasdale or the bus from Keswick to the slate mine for example) to keep traffic minimised. I’d encourage using those options over picking summits where you can park.
Pont ar Daf car park (access to Pen y Fan), Near Storey Arms, Libanus, Powys, LD3 8NL
We went up Pen y Fan a fortnight ago by parking (with some difficulty as some pr*ts were parking parallel to the back of the layby rather than ‘nose in’) in the large layby opoosite the Storey Arms adventure centre. On reaching the gate we discovered why the parking there was more popular than usual:as the footbridge form the Pont ar Daf car park had been closed for ‘emergency repairs’.
I’m not sure how long this diversion had been in place but I wouldn’t expect any repairs to be swift. Owing to the mist it was not possible to see the usual crocodile coming up from the NT car park but the path certainly did seem to be in use.
M0JLA striding along the Corn Du by-pass on the way to Pen y Fan. Needless to say, the summits was well on the way to clearing as we started the descent.
As you can see from the pictures it is a very popular summit with the associated erosion problems so it is advisable ro choose a weekday rather than a weekend (if possible) and I think it likely that you would not easily get away by overnighting in either the large layby or the NT car park. BTW there is apparently a good path off the road from one parking place to another. Good luck.
73 Viki M6BWA
The path is very handy, we used that path last summer when we got the bus to Storey Arms from our campsite just outside Brecon. That’s when we realised we could have parked the Motorhome at the NT carpark.
In Scotland/GM for me it all depends where and the local situation. Many parts of the highlands have such an issue with popularity and inconsiderate motorhome parking (mainly in summer and especially anywhere near the NC 500 route)
The busy places… Caringorms, skye, glencoe, glenshiel, etc I usually opt for campsites. If I am on Skye, it is so busy in the summer , I only really ever stay at the Sligachan or my favourite, Glen Brittle, for the superb Cullin ridge, BlaBheinn or Sgurr Alistair GM/SI-001. Quite possibly the worse midges in all of Scotland. Or the Glencoe area, I just stay at red squirrels in Glen Coe. Decent cheap and Convenient.
I find more and more, many rural communities put on designated places to stay, for a small donation of a few quid you get toilets, a decent park up and a lashing of midges - such as the community centre in Arnisdale for the approach to Beinn Sgritheall GM/WS-073. Its gets my vote every-time, even though there are many good places to park as its very rural.
Then there are remote glens and locations, like Glen Garry and Lock Quoich, one of my favourite. This is virtually uninhabited and lots of top spots which are low impact, stunning and come with even larger lashing of midges.
