Meall Chuach, Sgor Mor, Mount Battock
All three of these hills have been activated and have had excellent written reports fairly recently, so I thought I’d share my experience of them rather than writing full route reports.
Sunday 1st August Meall Chuaich GM/CS-035
This rather excellent little Munro is situated just to the north of Dalwhinnie and is accessed directly from layby No. 94 on the A9 road between Perth and Inverness. The walk in is very industrial for a rural spot, with a concrete lade or aquaduct following an rather excellent track (which really ought to be biked), past a small power station, some sluices and then finally the dammed Loch Chuaich. The mountain is ascended from the track and we found that we spent an hour on the track and an hour on the actual ascent. The Estate clearly don’t want walkers getting lost. There are numerous signs along the route.
Meall Chuaich from alongside the track
The top is a bit of a dome, with a large round cairn atop. I’m glad we were there first as it only afforded protection from the wind along a very small section of its circumference. It was much cooler than of recent times due to the northerly breeze.
With Mo’s assistance I soon had the usual inverted V (40/20m) up in the breeze and tuned the KX2 around the band looking for signal conditions. I wasn’t confident that 40m would be in great shape given the time of day (1130z) but I heard a 5/9 signal from G3UDI calling CQ on 7.139MHz. He answered my reply, giving me a 5/5 we had a brief chat without any fading, so great.
Don’t know why I look so grumpy
I found my own frequency (7.115MHz), got a spot away (with a little trouble) using 4G and proceeded to work fourteen stations. I thought I may catch some of the Yorkshire contingent who were out activating that day but ended up just working one Yorkshire operator - Allen @2E0AGB, who was sat comfortably in his shack. To be honest, once I was in the groove I was reluctant to walk the 150m needed to reacquire a phone signal and see who was out there. There was some fading evident, however I managed to work into EA, DL, F, G, GW, GI and SA.
We packed up just as three groups of walkers appeared. Good timing, as we were hogging the only sheltered spot.
We descended the same route and had lovely views to the west over to the Ben Alder GM/CS-009 group of mountains and north west to Creag Meagaidh GM/CS-002, taking around 1 hour 40 munites for the return leg.
Over to Loch Ericht and the Ben Alder hills
Summary
A great wee Munro, easy access, crying out for a cycle up the smooth access track, with great views and there’s no excuse not to do this if you’re in transit on the A9 and have a few hours to kill.
Tuesday 3rd August Sgor Mor GM/ES-026
This was probably pushing the limit of what I can achieve after work, without coming down in the dark.
Mo and I had climbed this as part of a much longer circuit in winter and somehow the memory of this grim climb had faded. Andy @MM0FMF wrote a great piece on this and to be honest if I’d read it before choosing this hill, I probably would have gone somewhere else! His words are complemented by the visuals in the video.
(As well as activating the summit, I wanted to play around with my Bothy Bag.)
In short, I left Linn of Dee car park at 1400z and was at the top 1 hour and 55 minutes later, having ascended steep, trackless, knee deep heather and then an endless grassy ridge. I had planned for an hour at the top and a self-imposed 1700z curfew which would allow me to be back home for 2000z, (2100BST) as I had work the next day…
Heather
Don’t mention the deer fence
Where distance has no meaning and scale is impossible
However, what Andy (and I suspect a few other of the 6 previous activators) didn’t see what how stunningly well situated the summit of this mountain is!
Looking north from Sgor Mor
As far as set up went - I jammed the 7m pole into a crevice in the cairn and strung up my 20m “up and out” using a walking pole supported by rocks to hold up the counterpoise end.
I then went off to play with the bothy bag. It’s a two person model from Terra Firma and I wanted to check that I could use it alone (without it flapping around) for radio. Surprisingly, it worked rather well, stifling the stiff breeze and remaining stable thanks to my rucksack dumped at the far end, with the remaining walking pole supporting the high point. There’s a pocket in the roof for this purpose. The only thing was - it was too damm hot in there, so I evacuated to the rather splendid but tiny summit shelter to operate.
Only thing was, the 20m antenna sent the SWR meter on the KX2 wild and the protection circuits cut the power. I’d now eaten into 40 minutes of the 60, so quickly dropped the pole and rigged the 20/40m inverted V, simply using rocks to hold the end guys in place.
20m “up and out” failure
Compact shelter
I’d hoped that 20m would be in good shape. It wasn’t. I worked @EA1DHB & @EA2DT and that was it.
It literally took me 30 seconds to drop then ends of the V, unlink the power-poles and get going again. Except that 40m was packed. I eventually found half a space at 7.0725MHz, where the only audio that could be heard was someone whistling away to themselves - for some considerable time.
My CQ/QRZ calls produce strong signals and also decent reports from F4WBN, DD0VE, MW7WDP/p ON3UA & DL6MST. After a couple of CQ calls went unanswered, I had to call it a day. I was packed up and eating my dinner of chicken and salad wraps on the hoof by 1815z.
Just a few hundred metres from the summit there were unusual pockets in the granite
The endless trek down was pretty unspectacular. As I reached the top of the steep heathery part, the sun dropped below the cloud, casting long summer evening shadows on the grasses.
Evening sun on grass
I made it down in 1 hour 30 minutes and was home for 2030BST, gaining some Brownie Points and a beer for my efforts!
Summary
I’ve climbed this so you don’t have to
Find the gate in the deer fence!
Wednesday 4th August Mount Battock GM/ES-032
Scotlands most easterly Corbett (hill between 2500’ and 3000’)
Mo and I had the day off, and had plans for some Munros, but a long-lost-friend Gavin MM3XGF was coming over to see us at 3pm BST. With that in mind, we elected to climb Mount Battock (from the Glen Esk side) and duly left the house at 0530z for the hour and a bit drive over the Cairn O’ Mount, which is a road not for the feint of heart.
We left the car park at 0645z and took 2.5 hours to reach the summit. Half an hour later than planned due me being in relaxed mode and following the wrong Land Rover track over an unnecessary hill. Cue the removal of any Brownie points previously gained. A bit of heather bashing and a drop of 100m got us back on track.
Nice approach walk
The ascent - the wrong ascent!
The “Correct” Land Rover track goes almost all the way to the summit, which is a pleasant place to operate from, thanks to a handy fence and substantial “His” and “Hers” shelters. Thankfully however, things hadn’t got so bad that we were in separate “rooms”.
Rooms with a view
The inverted V went up quickly and I easily found a vacant frequency on 40m. I used the Yaesu ft-3d to spot myself via the APRS to SOTA facility - just because I could, and just because we were in range of MB7UAZ, my QTH digi-peater.
I called CQ at 0945z on the KX2 and had a very large pile-up. The band was in great condition and I was delighted to work 15 stations in 11 minutes! 12 of those were UK stations, including Phil @G4OBK for the first time and 3 S2S contacts:
M0JKS on G/SP-006
GM4JXP on GM/ES-079, just up the road
GW4TQE on GW/MW-013
Mo tapping her watch let me know that we were over out time, mainly thanks to my diversion en-route, so I called QRT and started to pack up. Then I remembered to call my traditional “2m CQ call with no answer” into the handie. I was delighted that fellow Activator MM0RFM up in Bridge of Don responded from his QTH and we had a short rag-chew.
It only took us 90 minutes to descend, giving us time for a late lunch in Aboyne, before returning home with 5 minutes to spare. Gavin didn’t turn up for a further 2 hours…
I still say that looks like the correct path. The proper one skirts round the right side
Summary
A mainly smooth but steep in places vehicle track most of the way to the summit
A great place to operate from.
It would be a hard push on a bike in places, but the descent would take about 15 minutes tops!
If you’re not a fan of “The Mounth”, then avoid.
And I’ve just lost some more Brownie Points for taking an age to type this up, so 73!
Fraser
