Helvellyn
You know when you wake up, and within 30 seconds you’ve knocked something off the bedside cabinet accidently, and that sets the scene for the day. That was today. The plan was to activate St Sunday Crag and Fairfield to maximise winter SOTA bonus. As I reached Ambleside I realised I’d left my phone at home. Deciding to press on my thoughts immediately turned to mitigating risk. Thoughts turned to Helvellyn purely as there would be more foot traffic and I didn’t remember any scary sections from previous activations.
The ascent from Dunmail Raise was uneventful, the fells at this level having no snow. Towards the end of the ascent to Grisedale Tarn there was a sprinkling of snow, icy water on the steps, and some very impressive icicles. I chatted to a guy coming the other way who had been on Seat Sandal and said that spikes were required. I’d left mine at home, but didn’t worry unduly as I’d done the descent from Seat Sandal recently, and come to the conclusion that whichever way you go up or down is steep and slippy.
After the somewhat wet traverse to the path up Dollywaggon I trudged up this thankless staircase, especially without any views today! Footing was still good on the way up, and the snow never reached more than a couple of inches in depth all the way to the summit. Within 500m of the summit the cloud thinned and I had some views to both East and West for about 20 minutes, with the ‘lemmings’ on striding edge cleary visible. The shelter and summit remained in cloud although I was able to see some of squirrel edge for a while. Weather conditions were great with a very light wind saving you from freezing!
Geoff @GM4WHA was first in the log, followed by a WOTA S2S with Lee @M0LLC on Bondscale Pike, Ireland represented by GI4OSF, Wales GW4ZPL has and an excellent S2S contact into Scotland with 2M0ODE/P on GM/SS-187, with Andy G8CPZ/P on WOTA Newton Fell and finally John @G0TDM.
Scottish S2S
I had a light lunch then set back off in the same direction, deliberately keeping left where possible to ensure I didn’t end up dropping off towards Wythburn Chuch.
Nevermost Pike LDW-009
By the time I reached Nevermost Pike Lee @M0LLC/P was near Arthur’s Peak with another four in the log. No visibility here!
Dollywaggon Pike LDW-018
I missed the path up Dollywaggon from the Helvellyn side, but picked up the path next to the iron spike which I think is where the path from Wythburn Church joins. Although the legs were complaining now I trudged the few minutes up and the activation brought in 10 contacts. The descent was uneventful but my legs were really starting to object now!
I missed the exit off the path towards Raise Beck initially, and had to double back a couple of minutes, before the wet traverse back to the top of the beck. The final descent back to the car was taken with deliberate steps to try and prevent stumbling!
LORA Tracking
Tracking worked well - as expected I didn’t get any pings until I was on the ascent to Dollywaggon.
Sidenote
Just to be different, I’ve written this report on a vintage IBM 340 laptop running Windows 3.11. I used to be into vintage computers till I discovered amateur radio, but mainly DEC gear although I did once have a very nice Tadpole Sparcbook (should never have sold that one!). Anyway it’s been quite a pleasant experience running Windows 3.11 for Workgroups on this laptop - it has a 486 processor (without co-processor), 8MB of RAM and the hard drive has been replaced with a 512MB compact flash so it is quiet. I also replaced the 1,800 mAH battery cells with 1,300 mAH cells - it runs for about an hour now on battery power. The screen is backlit mono 640x480 with a deep-travel keyboard.
