Two questions needed to be answered :-
Was I fit enough to attempt a 4 pointer after a long lay off?
what was the intermitent fault on my car?
Set off from home in bright sunshine as far as Ilkley where we stopped to completely fill the petrol tank and add some injector cleaning additive.
The car has been misfiring a bit on hard acceleration. The computer says either " intermittent weak mixture’ or perversely “intermittent rich mixture”.
Unfortunately the warning light does not stay on for more than a few seconds so no exact fault is recorded.
By Skipton we were in low cloud and this persisted as far as Ribblehead Viaduct where it suddenly changed to 70% blue sky. Over Blea moor and into Dentdale I even had to turn on the Aircon.
Thus far no coughs from car engine.
At the bottom of the Coal Road in Cowgill the dreaded red sign was uncovered ’ Road closed above Dent Station’
Decision taken to see how far we could get. Car spluttered on every corner!
The answer was as far as the usual parking spot. After that we could see the road was covered in snow drifts with just a line of very deep vehicle tracks.
A 4x4 went sailing past as we were putting our boots on and got about 50yds before it grounded its Diffs and came to a halt.
The walk to the sheep pen where the permissive path (it’s now access land and the sign had disappeared and the stile is much more walker friendly) was icy and covered in snow patches.
The path up the hill, which is usually boggy, was covered in deepish snow and where it had thawed icy moss. This made progress somewhat slower than I had anticipated. A welcome stop was made at about the half way point to work Gordon (G0EWN) on LD-032. Actually this is slightly inaccurate, I had answered my first question, I was admiring the view far too often, so it was NO.
We struggled on (actually my XYL and Tansy (a 14 tear old dog)) legged it and were 100 yards ahead with Tansy running back to see where I was.
Finally on the summit the snow was up to the top of the wall on both sides and only about a third of the trig point was above it.
It was blowing a gale - nothing new there then 
.
After a chat with a party of well equipped walkers - trainers,jeans and baseball caps? I started to set up the station at the stone seat which had it’s own moat.
The handheld sprang into life and I worked Marin (M1MAJ) and Caroline (M3ZCB) for an StoS with Fountains fell, this was tail ended by a call from the Briarfield master spotter - thanks Mike (G4BLH).
The slim jim was set up on the 3m roach pole (fits inside rucksack and Susan can hold it steady in any wind) and a further 8 contacts were made.
The pole support now reported she was cold so we packed up. The descent was very quick thanks to a couple animal feed bags,
When we reached the car we noticed a bloke in a T shirt trying to dig his Vectra out of the first drift.
We managed to push him back just enough to get enough grip to reverse onto the clear road.
The drive home was via Sedbergh and Kirby Lonsdale stopping a Booths to buy provisions and medicine (Yellowtail Merlot),
The car is still coughing so not cured yet.
Thanks to all worked
Roger G4OWG
(Still need 12 points for half Goat)