Activation report from the epic ‘Mourne Mountain Madness’ day out had in GI
Date:
2nd January 2024
Joint Activation:
Jason @MI3UIW
Ben @GW4BML
Route taken:
A total of 16 miles hiked… a total of 2,100m ascent, a total of 1,995m descent
Summits activated and qualified:
- Slieve Donard GI/MM-001
- Slieve Commadagh GI/MM-002
- Slieve Bearnagh GI/MM-004
- Slieve Meelbeg GI/MM-005
- Slieve Lamagan GI/MM-006
Total contacts made:
50 on VHF (FM only)
150 on HF (SSB & CW)
It was half way through 2023 where my plans changed and a new year holiday was booked to GI to visit some friends. Having previously been to GI, I know the Mournes mountains pretty well, and to my advantage, we were staying in a small village called ‘Kilkeel’, which sat just below the mountains - happy days!
I had spoken with Jason @MI3UIW a couple of times over the airways from SOTA summits, so I thought I’d pop him a message asking if he’d like a day out in the mountains. Jason sounded very excited with his reply message and we conjured up a cunning plan - it was a mad route, but I love madness, so it looked good on paper! 
After a very uncomfortable ferry journey from Holyhead to Dublin because of the awful weather conditions we were receiving, poor Martha was very near to being sick! We arrived in Dublin with a 2 and a half hour journey by truck to Kilkeel. It all worked out in the end, we arrived at our rented bungalow for the week, made some tea, and put our feet up for the night.
The first few days after seeing friends, we did some local family friendly summits (some were much harder than others, maybe family friendly wasn’t the right way to describe these) where we packed a picnic in the bag and made the most of our time. New Year’s Eve was quiet for us, little Lyra slept all through the night and Martha and myself did manage a glass of champagne and a chocolate to see the new year in
New years day for us has always been a hike, even before I began doing SOTA, so off into the hills it was for us. The weather was dry, but very very cold! I needed to stretch my legs ready for the big day I had ahead of me…
Tuesday morning 2nd January arrived, my alarm clock went off at 04:30. I had pre-cooked some bacon and sausage the night before, so it was just a matter of heating some beans up with an egg, and that was my breakfast made in 5 mins with a coffee. All my equipment was packed the night before, so I got changed into my hiking gear and off out the door I went to meet Jason, who was picking me up outside the bungalow at 05:00.
Jason was on time, so we had a gentleman’s hand shake loaded my rucksack into the boot, and off to go go go we went.
Our route began at the Bloody Bridge, which was approximately 20 minute drive from my rented bungalow. We arrived, parked up, took a starting line selfie, and took off up the track heading for our first summit of the day - Slieve Donard GI/MM-001.
We followed a stoned path for a good mile, then had to traipse through some boggy ground until we met the Mourne wall which took us straight to the trig. The whole hike was smack on 3 miles, unfortunately the images aren’t the best. It was very dark and the mist was low down, so visibility was non-existent.
The trig was in view - happy days Jason activated on 2m FM and qualified straight away, leaving me needing 4 or more contacts on 80m SSB. I put a call out and also managed to qualify pretty fast - chasers were ready on the end of their microphone which was great, thanks for the support all, it’s not easy qualifying a summit early in the morning!
I packed my HF equipment up, we had a summit selfie, and continued on our big journey.
Next summit on the list was Slieve Commadagh GI/MM-002, this was basically following the Mourne wall to the col, and then back up hill to the AZ. In total it was a nice short 1 mile hike which didn’t take us too long - it is very steep though, so we had to be careful of the slipy wet ground under feet.
On top of the summit stands a nice stone building, I used this as my office and activated on 7-CW and SSB, while Jason stood just outside and used the wall for shelter calling out on 2m FM. It certainly didn’t take us both long to qualify, the bands were completely open and chasers were coming in thick and fast - great times! Once the pile-ups were worked and final calls were put out, we both had a quick bite to eat and made tracks for our next summit.
The first part was relatively easy, we just followed the Mourne wall down hill. Struggling a little in the mist to find our turning left exit point, we jumped over the wall and descended following a stream until we were back on a nice path, taking a nice selfie as doing so.
There was a slight breeze in the air which kept blowing the mist on occasions, so we did manage to get some nice photos of the amazing scenery we were passing by. And of course, a couple of good solo photos by a lovely trickling stream.
Summit number three, Slieve Bearnagh GI/MM-004 looked a beast on the map, and it certainly lived up to this in reality! We had a 1.5 mile hike to the col and a brutal 1 mile climb/scramble to the top. The food we had eaten on the previous summit was certainly all burned off by the time we arrived on Bearnagh
Note: in the above image, the mountain in the foggy distance is far from the top of Bearnagh. I’d say it is pretty much more likely to be quarter of the way up!
Keeping our heads down and plodding on, we soon saw the top of Bearnagh rocks, which were standing out loud and proud in the misty fog.
Jason and myself had a good routine going by now. Jason would set up for 2m FM and call out while I put up my 6m carbon pole holding my EFHW antenna and called CQ using the KX2 pushing 5w. We certainly didn’t struggle for contacts all day - the bands were alive with the sound of SOTA chasers, woohooo after us both working great pile-ups, we packed away. I was always last to pack up due to doing HF, so Jason always helped me take equipment down, cheers buddy.
Three summits down, three more to go!
In the distance you could see our next target, Slieve Meelbeg GI/MM-005. But before we got anywhere near, we had to descend the mighty Bearnagh, which took some time and care. It was a fair drop to the bottom! Nevertheless, we both continued chatting away and in no time, we were on the path heading the right way to Meelbeg.
Again, the Mourne wall came upon us fast, so it was another uphill climb to the top. No scrambling this time which made it easier and faster to summit! The mist didn’t seem to shift much when arriving on top, so our views throughout the morning were very little.
Meelbeg has a curved wall on top, pretty much dead centre of the summit, so we used this as our shelter. The wind speed had dramatically increased, so this really helped keep us warm and shaded. The same band configuration was used, and we both qualified without any issues at all - another summit selfie was taken, and I still think we look pretty fresh for the amount of hiking and climbing we’d done?? 
we are at least still smiling, hi!
Now came the bad news. While we were both activating on Meelbeg, a hiker passed by and asked us what we were doing and where we were going next… I explained to him the SOTA scheme, which he found very interesting, and told him our next step. He said Goodluck, and continued on his journey. 5 minutes later, back up the hill the hiker came, walking towards me. He said “I’ve been thinking about your next route and don’t think you’ll make it there due to heavy flooding and boggy places up to your necks”. He was obviously local and new the area well, so we looked at the map again and plotted a different approach. This approach would mean there wouldn’t be enough time to complete the 6 summits we had planned, but we could at least tick one more of them off.
After a quick bite to eat and a swig of water - Jason and myself discussed our options and agreed to take the different approach and miss Slieve Binnian off our list - a good thing we did, because the weather turned for the worst!
Back down Meelbeg we went, following the same path we used to summit it. We hit the col of Bearnagh and instead of climbing over it again (once in a day is quite enough for Bearbagh ) we went around using a new path for us. We new we were in for a brutal hike now, so we made the most of it by taking every view in possible, having a good laugh planning our next adventure, o, and we managed to get some great photo’s too!
We began to climb higher and higher on a good used path, this made walking much easier. You will see by our route, we had to climb over Slieve Beg and Cove Mountain (which both aren’t for the faint hearted). The paths to both these mountains had been hit hard by the rain, so there was a lot of loose stones to be aware of. The daylight was disappearing, the wind chill was picking up and the rain was getting heavier. You will see Slieve beg in the distance of the below image.
We kept plodding on, despite the wx conditions, and after just over a 5 mile hike from Meelbeg, we were at the col of our last summit Slievelamagan GI/MM-006. There it stands in the mist.
I said to Jason, we are nearly there, the big smiles on both our faces would of been a great picture, it was just too cold to get the phone out!
We both agreed that this was going to be a quick activation - we needed to get down yet, and that route looked awful on the map, especially now it was pitch dark!
Jason called out on 2m FM and I worked 7-SSB, and thankfully all chasers were there waiting for us - THANK YOU ALL VERY MUCH my antenna did blow down a few times, but I got there in the end.
We packed up pretty swiftly, chucked our rucksacks on our backs, had a summit selfie and made for our descent.
The path down, hang on, there wasn’t a path the route down we took wasn’t very nice at all, but after being very careful and taking our time, flat ground came into view! Yay!!! It also made the rain look worse, but we didn’t care to much about that - we had a black discovery to look out for!
3 and a half miles later, we found the black discovery parked up in the carpark waiting for us. We were soooo glad to see it from a distance 
Martha and little Lyra had brought some hot chocolate and snacks for us, cheers girls!
We hadn’t eaten a lot all day, so a cheeky chicken and chips was purchased from ‘Herrons Country Fried Chicken’ and it didn’t touch the sides! hahaaa - I do recommend if your in the area.
What a fantastic day had in the Mournes mountains - the company was fantastic, thank you very much Jason, I really enjoyed myself and definitely look forward to another adventure soon!
I’d also like to say a massive thank you from Jason and myself to the chasers who supported us both throughout the day - it was really nice to speak with so many friends over the airways! Thanks to John @GI4OSF and Fraser @MM0EFI for the S2S contacts we had - it was great to get you in the log 
Looking forward to returning to GI soon!
73, Ben & Jason
GW4BML / MI3UIW
you know me - we’ll have to pick a date!