Snow has stuck well up in the Welsh mountains after last night. Much more then I had originally imagined there would be. Returning back to North Wales the M56 yielded some minor sleet, not expecting there to be much on the mountains the following day.
GW/NW-034 Cyrniau Nod was this mornings choice of summit, I had originally planned to activate 36 and 33 as a pair. I am glad I did not implement that plan. The approach road to the car parking spot was lethal, if any of you have activated this summit you will know there is an awful drop into the valley on the approach road. On the return back home I locked the front wheels, fortunately I still remained in control of the car…just
Activating is very much compromised in the Winter. SOTA is still proving to be a great form of escapism. From the dirty, noisy Manchester to this place is a complete transform.
Thanks for the pics, Jonathan.
I saw your alert and I wanted to chase you but, for some reason, I didn’t see a spot of your activation on Sotawatch and I missed you.
It will have to be next time…
I perfectly understand and agree on your words about how good the pile up does after a hard week.
The work out and being in nature also helps a lot to reduce stress levels, but the pile up is indeed the icing on the cake.
I woke up to a covering of snow at home on the edge of the Peak District. Heading along the M56 there wasn’t all that much in NE Wales, but when the Carneddau came into view I new I was in for some fun!
I had to keep it short because the WX got quite unpleasant and I was short of daylight. 10m was open to the US. Rich, N4EX, was so strong I thought he was a line-of-site G at first!
I remember doing that summit and it started to get dark before returning back through the woods. Spooky stuff. I didn’t stay long either Simon. When I did Creigiau Gleision it was in the snow.
I need to get onto 10m, I had the antenna with me but I need to sort the guying lines for it this week. Rich always has a good signal with me.
He was spotted, hence I found him and yes was bit of a pile up and very surprised I got through so quickly. Some times am just jammy with the conditions in my favour. Go Go 10w
Lovely photos again.
So on a foot note winter is coming just to remind folks be careful and do let people know where you are and roughly return time. Plus when safely down message that safety person you have chosen to say you down safe and on where ever next your going please.
It has always seemed odd to me that the first day of winter according to the calendar is Dec. 22nd, the shortest day. We can have snow in the hills any time, and in the lowlands an Arctic burst can give us snow any time from October, but winter seems ridiculously late. The Met Office judges winter to be December, January and February, on the basis of sea temperatures, and that makes more sense to me! Anyway, as a mountaineer I used to take an ice axe and crampons on Meets from October to at least Easter (often the best snow conditions for climbing in Scotland came in March, with more hours of daylight to enjoy them) and though in the hills we should never let our guard down, that for me was the time of maximum alertness. As Karl says, stay safe. I forget who it was who first said “the hills will be there tomorrow, make sure you are!”
Ah, there’s a wee bit of snow up in GM too, the sunrise oot west was pretty nice this morning over Ben Cruachan although my photos don’t really do it justice. Not many towels out on the beach mind.