The first fine day for well over a week, so its off to Glasgwm. I approached from Cwm Cywarch (see route description under the summit heading) and took about 1hr 40mins for the ascent. I was able to self-spot (T-Mobile) from the summit, although it was a little tempermental. Vodafone also showed a good signal, but I didn’t attempt to use it.
80M ssb brought G0RQL, G0NES (deep QSB reported) G4JZF, GW4BVE (and even after all these years I am still relieved to get the first 4 QSOs in the log) and GW0DSP. A change to 40M ssb brought one new QSO (DF5WA) and repeats from GW4BVE and G0RQL. More changes to the aerial for 20M ssb and after a slow start, a mini pile-up ensued with QSOs with SM6CMU, DJ5AV (thanks for assistance with a couple of QSOs and for pointing out to another station that the frequency was in use) DL3JPN, DL7RAG, DL9KI, GW4BVE (a full house) S51ZG, HB9AGH, OK1AOV and S53X. I believe this is the first report of 20M QSOs from this summit. Not a bad haul for 5 watts from my FT817 and a stepped dipole aerial.
To return, I descended the line of the fence on the north side of the summit. It’s much less unpleasant to ascend this route than descend it, and I won’t be doing it again. The reason was to look at the route down from the (very boggy) coll at SH842200 to Cwm Cywarch as part of a route off Aran Fawddwy, having ascended via Hengwm and Drysgol. Its not desperately steep, but it is rocky in places and a bit wet in others.
I followed this up with a short drive to SH905213 which could be the start of a route onto NW-031 via the path along the valley and up the line of the fence from SH885230.
Many thanks to all who called in, and apologies to DK4MO who disappeared before I could complete the QSO.
Dave, M0DFA/G6DTN