I’m not very well travelled but I did have a trip to Austria with the Scouts in summer 1990, I was 11 at the time. We climbed some mountains, I think the name was Lechtal Alps, I get the feeling that they’re in the same general geographical area, just over the border. In any case, the terrain looks very similar. We were definitely very near the German border as I can remember going to an open air swimming pool in Germany one day
As it was summer time, the mountains didn’t have snow and I remember that one of the slopes had a dry toboggan course. Unfortunately I crashed my toboggan (no fault of my own) and I grazed my left elbow severely. I still have the scar to this day! I have fond memories of the trip despite my injury.
After todays activations being cancelled due to bad WX, I’ve lost my last good chance to grab 6 winter bonus points. I may try it again tomorrow, but the WX forecast is even worse, so it’s going to be very, very unlikely.
At least, let me show you a few pics I took during my short time in the mountains this morning.
That’s the kind of weather we get here in Scotland in the middle of May! I was hiking over a few summits and camped overnight on Shalloch on Minnoch GM/SS-048 last May and awoke at 5.30am to everything being frozen solid and my bottle of water was just an bottle of solid ice. Not cold enough to freeze the peat bogs though!
Managed 57 winter bonus points so far this season. Should have been 60 points but failed to raise a 4th contact on boxing day 26th December 2017, GM/WS-292 (Ben Shieldaig). Short day plus the late start didn’t help!
Best day, so far, was on 4th February 2018 when we skied over to GM/ES-005 (Beinn Mheadhoin).
Have just arrived in Switzerland so potential for a few more bonus points by end of March.
Hi Colin, no shorts as experience has shown the vegetation can be quite sharp and has been known to draw blood therefore really lightweight walking trousers and I usually carry around 2 litres of water in a hydration bladder in the rucksack. I haven’t ran out of water yet but have been close on a few occasions
Hi Malcolm,
I hope you don’t mind me saying it but this would be a great picture for the SOTA database web interface! You know the webpage that comes up when you go to enter your logs at SOTA Database
54 winter bonus points this season with a lot of local hills unvisited owing to injury (M0JLA hurt his knee walking off Yr Eifl at New Year and that took 6 weeks), the wrong sort of weather on days I was available (as usual) but I did manage a couple of walks in good cold weather (ie not snow as I can’t see if it is bright). I took a bus to Hay on Wye on the Welsh Border and walked up the Offas Dyke Path to below Hay Bluff and then on to Hatterall Ridge and ‘Black Mountain’ GW/SW-041. It was a cold, bright day…
and was soon marching down to the bus stop as quickly as possible!
On M0JLA’s first activation after convalescence we chose some easy hills DSCI0493|666x500
Brown Clee and Titterstone Clee G/WB-002 and 004 but it wasn’t very warm on either of them
Our March “winter bonus” SOTA holiday was rather limited by the weather, and we only managed 8 “bonus” summits having lost 2 activating days to the weather, and on the days we were able to get out we were limited as to which summits we felt capable of doing, and there was only one day we did two summits.
Martyn has already posted the fine photo of our HF operation on Grisedale Pike, but here’s one of the view in the other direction from near my VHF operating position.
The winter bonus is in full effect here in VE7 until the end of the month, which was nice considering the effort it took to climb Mt. Garibaldi (VE7/SL-009). Four days, tenting in -15C, and an overall elevation gain of more than 2000m and 9 points well earned. Pretty good skiing, too!
just had a great day ski touring on Munt Buffalora HB/GR-368. Activated on 40m before it started snowing again. Final day of winter bonus in HB land and felt like I earned them today breaking trail for some of the ascent. Super powder snow on descent but soggy back at car park. So a total of 75 winter points this season, although I cheated by activating in Switzerland 2 weeks after the Scottish bonus season ended.
Our FMF is definitely evolving - that’s for sure - hi!
And off to see these old folk-rockers this coming Friday at the USHER HALL with friends of the same ‘ilk’. Looking forward to it and a few beers of course!!!
i last saw them in Perth a few years back, excellent. The rest of the band used to change regularly but Martin Barre was a constant. Now he’s been put out to pasture too. Still, probably be rather good. I think I might go and put Hunting Girl on nice and loud. The remastered CD doesn’t half sound good compared to the original CD master which was made of some old tin boxes
