Sat at 979 points, and with the second sunny day of the year, one where it was not too cold or windy too, where I am not working (I think the last sunny day was when I bumped into @M0RWX and he helped me find the end to my antenna pole), it would have been rude not to go out and go for my Mountain Goat.
With 21 points remaining, I had a day out planned in my head. Drive to South Wales and do Pen y Fan, GW/SW-001 and Fan Fawr, GW/SW-005, and then do my local summit, High Vinnalls G/WB-012 for an easy activation to push me to 1000 activator points.
Alarm set to get up at 4:55am, and on my way by 5:30am. I arrived at the Storey Arms for 7am and with haste and just about needing the headtorch I set off up Pen y Fan. The path was in an interesting condition, on the way up felt slippier than on the way down.. Or was it just my imagination. I guess a learning point of the day, even though I felt I was fine without them is to pack the spikes even if they would have been overkill. The climb up otherwise was fine, and as I summited Corn Du I was invited with an amazing sunrise.
The whole route, to my shock, felt like Piccadilly Circus. So many people were out on the hill at this time of morning, I do not envy the job of the National Trust(?) in maintaining the path erosion.
I crossed over to Pen y Fan and headed to the sunny side of the hill and took a pew. I soon got 6 QSOs including a summit to summit with @MW7DBF Mark who has been a regular in my Welsh winter escapades.
I then retraced back down, admiring some of the equipment choice of dryrobes and shopping bags for going up a mountain, before crossing the A470 and heading up Fan Fawr, which luckily was not too boggy and a little bit frozen over. I arrived a bit earlier than anticipated, so decided that after qualifying on VHF, I switched over and did some 20m, which was not too busy at this time. However, 40m was absolute chocka, and decided to not have a go. An aspect of my activating post-goat I want to do is to use 40m more, however I always find it a very busy band especially on weekends, and struggle to find a free space. The activation was probably my favourite all day - it was the complete opposite to Pen y Fan in the sense that I only saw a handful of people, and I could admire the view of Pen y Fan and Fan Brycheiniog.
I then headed back down and soon made my way to G/WB-012, picking up some lunch to eat at the summit.
The climb up from High Vinnalls car park, despite being fairly steep is quite short lived in comparison, so I decided for my goat activation I was going to have the full VIP treatment. Armed with my camping chair and lunch, I headed up the hill and found a suitable spot out of the way since I knew how busy Mortimer Forest can get on a nice day, and set up shop for VHF. I managed to get the 4 QSOs pretty quickly and I was happy that it was M7WUK Scott, a clubmate from TDARS who has worked me many times and I see often, who ticked me over and qualified the summit, bringing me to achieve the MG status.
I then set up for HF and soon found out that both 20m and 40m was pretty busy, so I carefully scanned around and tried to find a free frequency and quickly pounced in and out on each band, and even managed to chase up Denis @MW0CBC for a groundwave QSO on 20m back into Bannau Brycheiniog.
Content, I decided to pack down and managed a quick QSO with Tom @M1EYP over to Walton Hill G/CE-002 on the handy before a short walk back to the van and a 5 minute drive home.
It has been an interesting journey so far, including what felt like a sprint finish over this winter bonus period to get my Mountain Goat, and I think that it is the end of a chapter and the start of something new in my amateur radio and SOTA journey. I look forward to what 2026 brings and enjoying more activations in GW land and further afield.
Thanks to the chasers, activators and those who do the work behind the scenes to make this a great part of the hobby.
73s for now,
Jared G5JFJ
I bet it feels very good. Onwards to x2 
? 73, M1TJM
