G/LD-024 Pike of Blisco
… was what auto correct made of the hill as I checked the weather forecast again at 6-30 AM. Sunny - need a hat and 14 C - spare fleece and make sure my daughter has some warm clothes. Actually Pike of blisters turned out to be pike of blistering heat ( well by Lake District Standards ) and the 700m ascent seemed a long way.
The National Trust car park was full but an enterprising farmer was charging £5-00 for parking in what had been a hay field. He explained we could park anywhere, but probably didn’t expect me to choose the far side of the field after consulting a compass to put the car in the shade of a tree when we got back. My daughter was not impressed by the extra walk but on returning to the car later in the afternoon grudgingly admitted it was in the shade. We walked to Stool End Farm NY277057 and along the valley towards the ascent.
It was dry, the streams were not and the rivers were trickles. Boggy bits were dusty. My watch tracks the ascent rate and I’m afraid it was well below what Nasmith would have expected. We managed to find a couple of pools of water in what was left of the stream to keep Woody cool. It would probably be more accurate to report that Woody found a couple of pools of water and with the lead / waist belt we use dragged whoever was attached rapidly towards the stream! He just walks into the water up to about his middle.
After more sweat and toil we reached the summit, and whilst Katie - my daughter and the dog had lunch I had about an hour for radio. Kit this time was the usual 80/60/40 linked dipole, 20m efhw with 49:1 balun and the KX2 on an internal battery.
I tried 80m first and my 10w wasn’t quite enough so although people were calling me they couldn’t really hear me very well, so only a couple of QSO’s. 60m was loads better with lots of 59 reports. Next I tried 10 using the efhw - with no luck and finally went to 20m where I managed a small pile up including 3 S2S contacts - must admit I hadn’t really expected to work The Cloud on 20m! The KX2 allows the PA temerature to be monitored - it reached 49C ( with a heatsink… ) so it was hot up there without a breath of wind.
Although I took the 2m HH I did a very quick unspotted call with no response and had run out of time.
It was a long way down, but I must admit I was driven by the thought of a long cold drink at the pub.
The state of the river under the bridge on the way to the pub was interesting - I think there is rain forecast for today so the rivers may return!
Two pints of very weak lager shandy later and I was starting to feel slightly more human and less sweaty lard…
Mystery bonus item… in the rucksack - Probably the extra fleece (One more than the spare fleece)
Item missing …- The extra litre of water which I didn’t think we would need left in the car
Lessons learned (4)…. The efhw antenna on 20 seems to work really well (A SOTA Centric End Fed Half Wave Antenna (Part 1) - #79 by VK1AD) ……The voice memory on the KX2 is really handy allowing hands free CQ calls whilst sorting out spots …. The Greggs which is on the A66 just after Penrith is a great start to a hill (NY 504286) ( Bacon & Sausage buttie ) … and flipping the phone to airplane mode and back is much quicker than rebooting the phone and allowed me to get a signal that worked with data.
Next time … I’m going on a diet or at least cutting down (but not the bacon buttie before a hill) as the 700m ascent should probably not been quite as much hard-work as it felt.
Hill worth repeating - yes - but the path is one of those ones the National Trust put down - which is great for the environment as it reduces erosion but is hard on the legs!
Thanks again to all the chasers - without them there would not be SOTA… and one more complete too!
Paul ( 34% Goat, probbably about 66% lard judging from yesterday’s walk )
- Paul (G4IPB), Katie and Woody.
