It is something I enjoy doing. That’s the main reason, but there are others:
It is 20 minutes drive from my home, and 10 minutes ascent, and on my way to/from work. So it is convenient for me to do it even on workdays or on days when I am doing other things.
Despite the short walk, there is still a fair few feet of ascent to be done. So it is just about perfect for a daily (or fairly regular) exercise to keep the heart and lungs in good nick, and the weight down (goodness knows what I would tip the scales at if I didn’t do the loads of sport and exercise I do weekly…).
It has fantastic views, clean fresh air and is very good for cheering you up or getting the day off to a positive start.
I like the VHF activity contests, so I might as well do them there and give away some SOTA chaser points as well.
I’ve met hundreds of interesting, kind and friendly people up there (and one rotter).
It is an ideal location for me to develop my abilities in amateur radio. I virtually always try my new antennas here first, as I know (generally) what comparable performance would be.
I realised early on that I was not going to have the discipline and motivation to learn CW in the shack. But sitting up on The Cloud doing a proper SOTA activation encourages me to practice my CW on a very regular basis. The fastest progress I ever made in my early days of learning CW, was when I started doing 20 minute 40m CW activations up there five times a week.
So that is why this summit is significant - to me. But it doesn’t ‘narrow’ my SOTA activities. I have over 200 activator uniques, and continue to seek out more.
Tom M1EYP