Following the snow on Pen Y Fan yesterday, I decided to cut my long weekend short and to head back to Cambridge on Easter Sunday, stopping at Black Mountain on the Welsh-English border on the way home.

GW/SW-041 Black Mountain

6-point Black Mountain is a lovely walk, which I last did just before Christmas. I shouldn’t have trusted my Sat Nav to get here from Cwmdu, however, as I seemed to end up on an awful lot of very small, minor roads, and a less direct route would probably have been more comfortable. Luckily, there was nobody much around early on Easter Sunday morning.

After parking at NGR SO239372, there’s an obvious path up the hill towards the summit of Hay Bluff (not a SOTA). It was half-way up here, where the path from the car park meets a more major path at SO243368, that the path became quite icy and it was again time to get my YakTrax onto my shoes to give some extra grip. It’s towards the end of the climb to Hay Bluff that you reach the only moderately difficult part of the walk as the path winds between some rocks, doubling back on itself. It wouldn’t normally be a challenge, but the slippery conditions made it more so today.

The summit of Hay Bluff, marked with a trig point, is where you turn South-East to head towards Black Mountain. The walk from here is almost completely flat with just a gentle rise from 677m ASL at Hay Bluff to 703m at the top of Black Mountain.

Ordinarily, this path is quite boggy, but under a decent layer of snow and ice, it was possibly slightly easier to walk in today. The total walk took about 1h10 for the ascent and 55 minutes for the descent, for about 225m climb and 2.5 miles each way.

I stopped well inside the activation zone at SO255354, where the path was slightly wider and I could get space to set up the antenna without falling through the ice into a frozen bog.

Despite calling on 2m, there were no replies, so all my 9 QSOs were on 30m CW.

Once I was off the hill, I found an ice cream van in the car park, which I treated myself with after helping to push another car out of the very deep mud that was just off the gravelled spaces (getting myself very muddy in the process). It was then back to Cambridge.

Having stayed the night at the very comfortable Cwmdu Campsite (only ten minutes’ drive from Mynydd Troed – where I  finished yesterday – and Mynydd Llangorse), I awoke to a very wet pitch. It had rained heavily all night, and I was aware that that rain would have fallen as snow on the summits.

I decided to wait for the rain to stop (which luckily it did, at around 9:30am), before I set out, meaning that I already started the day behind my planned schedule.

GW/SW-001 Pen Y Fan

As its numbering suggests, Pen Y Fan is the highest of the Brecon Beacons, at 886m, scoring 8 points for SOTA. The main carpark is about a 40 minute drive from Cwmdu and, despite the weather, this substantial layby was approaching capacity by the time I got there. This is such a popular walk that there were easily hundreds of people going up with me.

This was as well, because the weather had made the normally easy, and well-maintained, National Trust footpath a bit challenging. Those in trainers were certainly slipping a lot and I was very glad to be wearing YakTrax – something that had been recommended to me only a few days before, and they were brilliant!

The photo below is the only one I managed to get with nobody else in it. In practice, I was on the hill with lots of other people, and this, combined with the wind chill, made operating a challenge. I started by calling on 2m, but could only manage 2 QSOs there. So, it was time for HF: I set up my SOTA pole at half-height, leaving the ends of my 30m dipole dangling, knowing I would be weak, but hoping that would be adequate to get the magic four QSOs total. It was, and after completing with another 4 people on 30m, I got off the hill as soon as possible.

The ascent took 1h25 and the descent took about 1h10. The ascent is 440m over a 2 mile path.

I had planned to activate the other SOTA qualifying hill in this valley, Fan Fawr (GW/SW-005) on the same day, but looking across at it from Pen Y Fan, it clearly had as much snow on it. I didn’t know Fan Fawr at all, but knew there would not be such a good, distinguishable path, so I opted to leave that one for another day, and to head instead back towards the campsite, so I could activate Mynydd Llangorse, which I hadn’t done yesterday.

GW/SW-015 Mynydd Llangorse

And so it was that I found myself parking in the same place as 24 hours previously, but this time to head up in the other direction to the 2-point Mynydd Llangorse.

From the road, it looks as though the two Mynydds are about the same height and steepness as each other, but this is an illusion. Mynydd Llangorse does rise sharply at first but it isn’t so steep as to need those slippery footholes that I’d struggled with yesterday. Instead, the path winds around the fort at NGR SO160278 (though you wouldn’t know it was a fort without the map’s indication – too little remains for a non-expert to tell), and soon levels out to another flat-topped hill with some lovely views looking back towards Pen Y Fan.

The flat top means there’s a large activation zone for SOTA and I set up a little away from the summit, instead choosing the Cairn at the point where two paths cross at SO1592567. In doing so, there was more space to set up my dipole without having to wade through too much heather.

With no rain, and without the snow covering at this altitude, this was a much more pleasant activation, and I took my time making the 10 QSOs on 30m, before heading back to the car. The ascent took about 40 minutes, and the descent about 30 minutes.

I spent the Easter weekend in Wales operating from some of the SOTA summits in the Brecon Beacons. After staying in Gloucester overnight on Maundy Thursday, I started Good Friday by heading up Waun Fach.

GW/SW-002 Waun Fach

I approached Waun Fach from the South-West, starting from the crossroads at NGR SO190267, just above Waun Fach village. This is up a very steep, narrow road off the A479 – the sort you think you wouldn’t want to meet anyone on. Once at the crossroads, though, there is plenty of car parking space.

From here, you walk up the road to a well-made path, and then onto the open moorland, where you follow the obvious paths straight ahead. This isn’t a very challenging walk, the path rises but not too steeply, and you eventually come up onto the flat, and often boggy, top.

The ascent took about 1h45 for about 2000ft, and the descent took about 1h15. The only slightly challenging bit was at Pen Trumau (NGR SO203292), where I was tempted to avoid having to climb the up onto the ridge. You do need to just go for it, continuing on the path up the short, and slightly steep bit onto the crest of Pen Trumau. There isn’t a way to skirt round it, but it’s less hard than it looked.

Passing about the 700m ASL contour line, the ground became frosty and then covered in a thin layer of lying snow, but this is also where you pick up a nice gravel path taking you to the summit of Waun Fach. There isn’t much to see on the summit though. It’s a flat top with no particular features.

As you can see from the photos, it was quite cold today, so I didn’t stay too long on the summit, but enough to comfortably activate the mountain on 30m CW and 2m FM. (8 QSOs on 10MHz + 3 QSOs on 145Mhz).

GW/SW-009 Mynydd Troed

From Waun Fach, it’s only about a 15 minute drive to the shoulder between Mynydd Troed and Mynydd Llangorse, just the other side of the valley at NGR SO161282. It’s worth noting that, approaching from the south, there’s a gate across the public highway (SO169273). This took me aback at first, but it’s perfectly fine to just open it and close it after you again. Parking is on the shoulder itself, where there’s space for about 5 cars at SO160283.

The 4-point Mynydd Troed is a steep climb, taking only about 45 minutes. It starts with a simple grassy path, but the steepest point turns to steps cut into the grass, which today were full of mud and quite slippery on the descent. Just when you think you’ve reached the top, the path turns around the side of the hill, as a final sting in the tail.

The top is nice and flat, like most of the Beacons, giving lots of room to operate, and this isn’t particularly well-frequented – most people seem to go up Mynydd Llangorse instead, as it’s the easier walk. Indeed, I’d planned to head up Llangorse, a SOTA 2-pointer, immediately after Troed, but with heavy rain looming and a tent to pitch, I decided to do the activation quickly and get off the hill. I made only 7 QSOs on 30m and 1 on 2m.

This post is part 3 of a series of three posts about my time doing SOTA in the Wicklow mountains. For part 2, see Wicklow Mountains SOTA Trip – Day 2: Djouce and Trooperstown Hill.

EI/IE-014 Sorrel Hill

After leaving my B&B in Laragh, it was a 50 minute drive in frosty conditions via the picturesque lakes outside Blessington up to Sorrel Hill, a small dimple on the landscape which is nevertheless worth 6 points plus winter bonus. The road to the car park at Sorrel Hill is single track, but the grass verges mean there’s plenty of places to pass. The car park itself was quite busy for a cold, crisp morning, but most of the people were heading on the path south towards Black Hill (not a SOTA), rather than heading north up Sorrel Hill.

The path itself is an obvious grass track straight up the side of the hill, and in no way steep. The only thing that made the walking difficult today was the frozen mud and puddles, which made the surface uneven. The ascent took about 40 minutes, and the descent (by which time the frozen mud was starting to thaw) took just over 20 minutes.

At the top, I set up in the shelter of the cairn as it was nice and quiet and, now that the haze of the last couple days had cleared, there were some very nice views. Don’t let the blue sky deceive you, though – the wind was still cold and strong!

Overall, this is a lovely hill and very easy for six points. I made 20 30m CW QSOs from here and, out of the wind, it was a very nice activation. It was quite surprising that it had only been activated 7 times before.

EI/IE-044 Saggart Hill

If it was surprising that Sorrel Hill was so little activated, Saggart Hill is even more of a mystery. This was the fourth ever activation of this hill, despite the fact that it is located very close to the N81, the main road heading south west from the M50 (Dublin’s ringroad).

To be fair, I wasn’t originally planning to activate this little two-pointer either but with some time to kill before my flight, it wasn’t a great detour, and I’m glad I did it. It’s only about 15 minutes’ drive from Sorrel Hill and about 40 minutes from Dublin Airport.

There’s a steep and narrow, but perfectly fine, road leading from the N71 to a barrier at entrance to the woodland on the hill, and enough parking space for a few cars to park on the side of the road. This was quite a popular place on a sunny winter’s afternoon, and I was lucky to find a suitable spot.

Getting to the top of the hill is easy. It’s a 10 minute walk up a simple track from the barrier through the woodland to the top of the hill which is covered in masts with various microwave dishes. One other website describes the hill as a ‘porcupine’ and that’s fairly apt – not all of them are visible in the picture below.

I found a quiet spot in a small clearing in the woodland to set up my own (fibreglass) mast. Given a lack of both space and time before my flight, I didn’t bother properly setting up the dipole and let the legs hang much more loose and lower than I would normally. As this was an unplanned bonus hill, I decided to accept a poor SWR and weaker signals if I could just get the four QSOs I needed for the points.

In the end, I was pleasantly surprised that the location wasn’t at all noisy on 30m (a particular surprise given that I was near an overhead powerline feeding the masts) and I managed 14 QSOs.

This brought me to the end of the three day trip around the Wicklow Hills, with 54 SOTA points (including Winter Bonuses) and 84 QSOs in the bag.

This post is part 2 of a series of three posts about my time doing SOTA in the Wicklow mountains. For part 1, see Wicklow Mountains SOTA Trip: Day 1 – Kippure and Tonelagee.

I’m staying at Tudor Lodge B&B in Laragh, just outside Glendalough, which is near to many of the mountains I’m climbing. It’s a lovely B&B. When I’m on these walking trips, I tend to have a large cooked breakfast, and then skip lunch, and then I will have a decent meal in the evening. The full Irish breakfast at Tudor Lodge certainly fits the bill, and Laragh’s Wicklow Heather restaurant has excellent fare for very modest price, so the location is working well for me!

EI/IE-007 Djouce

The breakfast meant that I left Laragh slightly later than planned, and headed about 20 minutes up the road to Djouce. This is another mountain that is worth 10 points plus winter bonus for SOTA, but like yesterday’s hills it is quite easy.

Having parked up in a layby at NGR O 169073, and then going through the thin line of trees beside the road, you quickly pick up a small path which in turn connects into the Wicklow Way, a major long-distance footpath. To reduce erosion, the Wicklow Way has been fitted with a boardwalk to railway sleepers covered in chicken wire. This makes the walk easy, and there’s little risk of going off-course!

Soon after picking up the boardwalk, there are some wonderful views of Lough Tay, although it wasy quite hazy today.

After the ascent of White Hill (630m, not a SOTA summit), the path descends a bit, shortly after which Djouce comes into view. The boardwalk continues most of the way towards Djouce, but turns at O 178097, where the Wicklow Way skirts the side of Djouce, continuing northwest. Leaving the boardwalk at this point, an easily visible track takes you to the summit.

This is a very easy walk and at no point is it particularly steep.

One of the things I’ve often found, however, is that there are some SOTAs that are easy climbs but then the radio activation is hard. Today, this was one such mountain. With the cold wind not much better than yesterday, I initially opted to take shelter behind the trig point and set my equipment up there. However, very quickly, more and more people started to arrive, all of whom (understandably) wanted to take shelter there too. I soon moved to another location nearby, where I could get a little shelter.

A quick call on 2m didn’t get any callers, so I soon started setting up on 30m. Trying to get the aerial to stay up in the wind was a problem, however, particularly as there were no useful rocks to tie off onto, and the ground was so frozen that I couldn’t get tent pegs into the earth to guy the mast. After about half an hour of faffing, I eventually decided to make do with keeping the SOTA pole low and just using the dipole as guys, me holding the coax as the third guy. This worked enough to get 8 CW QSOs, so comfortably enough for the activation.

The ascent of Djouce took almost exactly an hour, and the descent about 45 minutes.

EI/IE-035 Trooperstown Hill

Although the SOTA scoring is based purely on mountain height, not difficulty of the climb, I’m sure many activators like me have an idea of what a hill ‘should’ feel like for a given points value. The previous three mountains were certainly among the easiest ten pointers I have done (outside Belgium, which is a different story). Trooperstown, however, felt more like the 4 pointer it is.

Trooperstown Hill is only about ten minutes’ drive from Djouce but part of the reason for it being a decent walk is that you start from just 150m ASL in the carpark at O 160969. This means that there are almost 300m to climb.

From the carpark, you follow the winding tarmac road through the pine forest. At the t-junction, turn right and head towards the local TV repeater mast.

Immediately after the mast, head through the gap in the gorse bushes to get your first view of Trooperstown Hill and the various paths that head to its summit.

The main path starts off as a gentle grassy path but soon switches to a rather steeper path of loose rocks and stone. The steepness wasn’t impossible, and it certainly isn’t a scramble, but it was enough for me to be glad of my hiking pole on the descent. This continues most of the way to the top.

The summit itself is quite flat, giving lots of space for operating, and unlike Djouce, I saw nobody at all, either on the walk or during the activation.

The activation was much more pleasant than Djouce because the wind had dropped unexpectedly, and the sub had started to come out, making this a much more comfortable activation. The lower elevation also meant there was no problem getting the guys into the ground in the heather around the trig point. After one quick QSO with GW0PTP on 2m FM, the other twenty QSOs I made were on 30m CW, including a SOTA-to-SOTA with HB9BIN/P on HB/SO-015.

The walk up took about 50 minutes, and the descent about 30 minutes.

All-in-all, this was a very nice little hill to operate from but be aware that in the EI association, four point summits do not get winter bonuses. Only six points and above do.

This series of posts continues with Wicklow Mountains SOTA Trip – Day 3: Sorrel Hill and Saggart Hill.