A wet, windy but enjoyable activation for John Blundell (M7RTB) & I today on Tal y Fan GW/NW-040. An early start saw us set off from my QTH about 715 with us heading off up the A55, following the sat nav to the car park flagged on SOTLas. As we were heading up the narrow lanes and avoiding the roman road, it became apparent we both had different car parks in mind (amazed there were 2 different parking areas!). Decisive navigation by John - and a quick u turn - took us to the car park at the start of the planned route…
We planned a circular route as we need to get hill miles in our legs, so not the usual straight up and down route. Started off nice and steady, then a sharp right and follow the stone wall with an ever increasing incline pretty much all the way to the top. Muddy and boggy in parts and a few scrambles on the wet rocks saw us arrive at the summit, but given v poor visibility we couldn’t see it until we were 50 ft away!
We hunkered down behind the wall and set up shop. Managed to get 10 in the log with qso’s ranging from Blackpool to Oldham, a very pleasing result.
A more straight forward route down, but by that point the wind and rain had really picked up, so on with another layer and carry on down the hill. Onto the road at the bottom and back to the car park.
A few lessons learned - some dry clothes for afterwards would have been nice - and need to take a cloth to dry/clean glasses as I could see about as much with my glasses off as with them on by the end!
Slight detour via Llanrwst on the way home for a brew and a bite to eat to finish off an enjoyable activation, lovely stuff.
73
MW7MWZ
