This didn’t go quite to plan and with a very busy June it’s taken a while to get on top of things.
There are two summits adjacent to each with the same name, Cnoc an t-Sabhail by the town of Tain (where Glenmorangie Whisky is made). NS-137 looks to be very difficult to get to the summit as it’s fully forested. That’s why it’s been activated only once and the last time was 16years ago. However, a huge amount of the forest has been harvested and whilst maps don’t show what’s gone, Google Earth does. It looks straightforward to get well into the AZ if not to the summit.
At the end of May, myself Andy MM7MOX and Alan MM0VPM were staying up at Andy’s mum’s house in the Flow Country. Main target was Beinn Akie GM/NS-149 in Cape Wrath, about 2.5hrs drive from where we were staying. Mission accomplished there. The 3 of also picked up Beinn Dhorain GM/NS-082. Andy and Alan were staying up for a few more days but I needed to get back to work so I went South and they went West. The plan was for S2S between Ben Griam Mor GM/NS-089 (for a complete for me) and my summit. I was going to do this and maybe one more, then stay Monday nearby and bag something, probably the other Cnoc an t-Sabhail then drive home. That would give me chance to complete Ben Hutig GM/NS-132 when they visited it.
So into the car park, boots on and it was a glorious day, warm and very sunny, so lots of suncreme. Then it’s follow the excellent forest roads for some distance before you turn off the road and cross the very soft moorland in between the trees and brash from harvesting.
You walk about 4.5km along tracks like these.
And then there’s about 600m along soft marshy ground like this.
And my operating position came into view, about 15-16m into the AZ so well legal. There seemed little point walking another 600m over cruddy ground as the true summit is in a firebreak surrounded by mature fir trees. The fence called out to support my antenna. So getting well into the AZ was trivial. It was excellent in the sun but once out of the shelter of the various wooded sections, the wind was very apparent. It was from the North and rather Baltic in temperature.
That photo shows there’s not much going on up here! Anyway, pole lashed to the fence post, antenna rigged and I was away. There’d been many texts between the three of us and we all seemed to get on the air around the same time.
Looking back with the antenna running SW. Experienced walkers of Scottish hills know exactly what the light green ground with shorter grass is, and the water is more than a boot deep but luckily I kept a dry sock, don’t ask how! 
First contacts where with Andy MM7MOX and Alan MM0VPM on Ben Griam Mor. In fact they were true LOS and we could have probably done some heliography for the QSO. Ben Griam Mor and Ben Griam Beag, 65km away.
Then it was HF time.
A total of 10 on 21MHz CW, 8 on 18MHz CW 13 on 7MHz SSB and 12 on 14MHz CW. All good stuff. It slowly clouded up and it was warm when the wind dropped. But it always came back. It seems strange to have slathered sun screen on but I needed a fleece. I bought one from Mountain Warehouse 10 years back and it was starting to look a bit shabby so I treated myself to a new one from Decathlon… here I am modelling it along with a Decathlon hat.
This hill is about 7km from Struie GM/NS-138 and the views from there are much better. Well there’s no trees for a start. The summit of Struie is at the left end of the ridge in this photo.
So then it was pack up and back out the same way. I did notice these amazing “fruits” on the trees, I assume these turn in to pine cones during the year.
Then it was back out the reverse route, boots off and I was off to my B&B. Unfortunately I had a “fail to proceed” issue with my car and the evening and next day proved very interesting in getting the car 170miles South to home.
Anyway that’s all sorted now. I also managed to finally retire mid-June. I’ve been working part time for nearly 3 years but to have no work days at all feels exceedingly weird. We made up for this with a nice company funded retirement party in the big city (Edinburgh) where nice food and an indecent amount of Malt Whisky was drunk. Sufficient for me to get on the wrong train home as I was so relaxed and I had to jump off and get a cab back home as there were no more trains. 
I know we have few activators this far North in Scotland but I still don’t know why this has not been activated more and not for 16 years. Sure it was a wee trek for 1 point but it was very enjoyable, car issues excepted.
