Hi All,
Carnedd Y Filiast,05/07/2009
We decided to do this one after Allan,G3MPJ a supposedly good friend of mine told us the views were “wonderful”.
We set off at 7.30 from Helsby,expecting a 1&1/2 Hour Drive minimum. This would give us over two hours to walk to summit. I knew it would be what we class as a long walk in. Arriving at Lakeside parking,at 9am,we set off up the Farm track through the woods to the gate at edge of pine trees. Turning right across the Heather and under the electricity pylons. This path today was very wet and if there were no loose gravel then it was bog! Just as we turned in front of Foel Boeth,the clouds opened and we had Torrential Rain,we got our TJ’s Special waterproofs out of bag and hoped for better weather on summit!!??
Continuing along well worn path ,we arrived at Stream that was quite heavy and took some gingerly walking across loose stones that were wet and full of moss. climbing now round col of Summit,back to really loose stones on path,making it difficult to get a good pace going.After what seemed to be an eternity we arrived at slight left turn across heather which was a short but more direct path to summit,an alternative route as we could now see the Trig and Cairn in all their glory! We were glad we used this route as when we reached the top we spotted that the path up was well out of the way.
We both agreed, This was the hardest walk in to date,and we genuinely struggled to reach Trig, 2hrs and 45 mins to reach summit with very boggy and lots of loose gravel on path. The Shelter cairn with its Trig inside was more than a welcome sight today,the rain had lightened but still with us. We decided to get inside shelter and set up camp,as there was no other people up there.
Set up,we decided to kick off on 2m ssb,and not finding a clear frequency,started chasing 2m contacts that were calling on all the range of 2m ssb. Making sure I had the correct IO locator we manged 17 contacts on 2m ssb, this included 4 contacts into Scotland,a unique contact with a G5(G5FZ/P) thanks for that. We also got 2 S2S with firstly both Tom/Jimmy M1EYP/M3EYP both Portable from WB-010 and secondly John GX0OOO/P on NP-008.
After calling on 70cm ssb,4mFM and 6m SSB again these wre no response.( I think I need to look at my Antennas for all these bands before my next Activity.)
To Summarise, The veiws from the summit were good but no comparison to Cadair Berwyn. The walk in was a big struggle for us both today,genuinly worn us out,as I write this we are both sitting here with our feet in bowls soaking away the aches from the day. 17 contacts and 2 S2S was a big bonus for the summit and made the day worthwhile,but my phrase would be “not too impressed with this one for a 4 pointer!”.
Thanks for all those who allowed me to chase them ,A special Thanks to Tom and John for my S2S’sand thanks for Elaine struggling and pushing me on to get up and down.
Calls logged on database and a couple of pics on Flicker as usual.
73
Tony