Black Combe is one particular fell which we have been meaning to do for years , long before my WOTA/SOTA days . I always noticed it on the Southern coast line even before I knew what it was called .
We have now finally got round to it , we had planned for Saturday , but not being as hardy nor intrepid as a certain trio of people we postponed until Sunday, which was a contrast to the previous day. Expected some low cloud and a fresh breeze but as it happened it wasn’t too bad at all.
Parked by the church in Whicham . Even the drive down was a pleasant change from the usual A66 via A595 which seems to be the usual route out of West Cumbria if you want to go anywhere. Very impressed with the walk and the views from the top , great view of all the other fells and all though it was a bit hazy on the coast you could see North to beyond St Bees Head and even the silhouette of Blackpool tower was just visible ,and what I guessed could have been the Welsh hills to the South ? , and the Isle of Man to the West .
What I didn’t expect was the intensity of tropospheric conditions . It was quite difficult initially to find a calling frequency with stations doubling over each other on several.
There were not as many local S2S contacts as the earlier event this year as some people from away had understandably likely cancelled due to weather forecasts , my log book looked like I’d worked 40m not 2m by the end of the day . I worked Chris M0RSF at home in Leeds comfortably , and Simeon 2E0VOE/P on Sutton Bank on the edge of the N Yorks Moors and both of us logged 2E1KJB in Cowes on the Isle of Wight at about S5 !
Richard 2E0XGO
Black Combe is a bad one for me to get on 2 meters there are to many big hills in the way
the photos are good Richard you had better conditions than us well done on getting out
Thank you for the contact as Black Coombe is a bad one for me to. At least you had good weather and good visibility along with some great photos! It is one fell i have not done but the path looks good. I wonder how long it took you to get to the summit?
Black Combe seems detached from the other main fells with the biggest of them clustered in your line of sight Reg . I think I heard Lee talking to you but I couldn’t hear you . It’s like that hill behind our house , I’m a bit close to it and it stops my path to most of the fells , but not Black Combe ironically.
Richard
Geoff .
We parked by a Church and just took our time going up as I’d given us a time window in case of weather, but it’s about two miles , with a steady climb initially which neither of us thought overly strenuous , then it is mostly a relatively easy slope up a good path for the rest of the way. It’s a bit different being on the coast instead of being surrounded by lakes and other fells as well.
Richard.
2E0XGO
Thank you for the information. Sounds like a realy nice walk. Just checked out the distance from home and it is about 85 miles going via the coast road!!
Yes Geoff it’ll be a fair trek for you.
It’s not too bad a drive to that point where Black comb is , but If I were driving to say Ulverston even from here I’d probably opt to go via the Lakes at this time of year , the road from Whicham onwards does not live up to it’s classification of an “A” road to say the least .
Richard
