One of my running club pals had suggested at the pub earlier in the week that she might fancy a run up Carn a’ Chlamain at the weekend, and I and a wee group of folk thought it’d be a good idea to tag on. It’s a nice run up Glen Tilt, and it’s a Munro I’ve never bagged before, and getting out for a much needed long run would be a perfect way to spend a Saturday.
All this is perfectly normal, it’s a way I’ve enjoyed a lot of Saturdays, but this time I had a bit of a daft idea: what if I chucked a radio in my pack and tried to activate it as GM/CS-031 while I was out with them? When I asked in the group chat if they’d mind me taking a radio along, I was largely met with expressions of confusion, but nobody seemed to have a problem, so that was sorted: I’d bring the wee FT-65 and an RH-770 in the trail pack and see how quickly I could knock out four contacts.
The big problem in my mind was that I’ve done almost all of my SOTA activations solo, and the one where I had company involved a very patient partner who was happy up to a point to get cold and bored while I tried (and failed) to eke out four contacts from the 2 metre band. Trying the same with a group of lightly-dressed trail runners without the same romantic attachment might be a bit of a harder sell.
Anyway, we got to the bottom of the trail and enjoyed a fairly gentle jog up Glen Tilt. The route essentially involved a 12km gravel road to the base of Carn a’ Chlamain itself, then a short but sharp pull to the summit, and then repeat again in more or less the opposite direction. Rather than ascend by the “normal” path suggested by Walkhighlands etc., we opted to climb by the smaller path just beyond the Forest Lodge, as used in the Full Tilt Ultra race route.
My daft plan then, was that I’d try and make a faster ascent than the group to gain a bit of time to faff about with the radio, I’d see them at the summit, and hopefully I wouldn’t have to hang about long before I could catch them up again on the way down. It’s worth noting that this plan might almost have worked, was it not for the fact that the rest of my group were all experienced ultra runners, with 70, 90, 160 and 200km races under their belts this season, including one who’d just used the Full Tilt Ultra race including this very hill as a piddly wee warm up for the monstrous Kerry Way race.
I tried my best, and boosted away to an early lead, and after a couple of minutes felt a very strong sense of regret as my heart rate reached some quite frankly unwise and unsustainable numbers. The steep wee switchbacked path seemed to go on for an eternity before the gradient eventually eased a touch as the summit finally came into view. Although conditions had been very pleasant down in Glen Tilt, the forecast strong winds had really started to materialise in a big way as I reached the final step up to the summit.
With a mind for quick deployment, I managed to throw a load of layers on my back, find a boulder to perch on and extend the RH-770 on the wee FT-65. My first QSO was a nice easy one down the A9 to Killiecrankie. I’d just managed to overhear Archie @GM4KNU out on GM/SS-236 Corse Hill as the rest of the runners made it up to the summit - so much for getting ahead of the game! The strong winds meant they weren’t very keen to hang about, and as soon as they had done the obligatory patting of the cairn they were off and the pressure was on.
I didn’t have to wait too long to catch Archie for a S2S QSO. I then managed to catch Gordon @GM4OAS over in Morar, and rounded off my day with a second S2S with Ayden @MM6DQG on GM/ES-032. This wasn’t a day for hanging about, and although I only had time for the bare minimum four contacts, I was happy that two of them were S2S and I’d covered a good range of the country.
The tricky part now was that by my estimation, my pals had about a 12-13 minute lead on me. With only about 15km back to the car park, I’d need to be making about a full minute per kilometre faster than them to try and catch them by the bottom of the road. Again, this would likely have been a whole lot simpler if my pals weren’t all seasoned trail runners!
I descended off the hill by the “simpler” route, the double track leading back down to the glen floor at Clachghlas. Even with good forward visibility down the track, my pals were nowhere to be seen. As the double track switched direction back towards Clachghlas, I took a wee shortcut path off the end of the ridge to Slochd Dail Mhoraisd, convinced my pals would’ve likely done the same thing. I got my head down and started bashing out the kilometres back towards the car park at about as hard a rate as my legs could carry me, not wanting to leave my mates sitting in the car park wondering when I’d appear behind them.
Just as I was approaching the car park, I saw a message from one of the other runners: “we were waiting for you at the bottom” it read. I was relieved, in my mind they’d only reached the car park about 5 minutes before me. However, it was only when I read the message fully that I realised what they had in fact done was not take my shortcut and had waited at the bottom of the hill at Clachghlas, not the bottom of Glen Tilt. Thankfully, once we had enough signal to work with, we realised the muppetry and I waited in the car park for them to make their way down to me.
Although the only member of the party with the car keys was still a good distance up the track, I found a comfy yellow grit bin to sit on, threw on all the warm layers, and thankfully had enough phone signal to upload my short activation logs to SOTAdata while I waited.
Moral of the story: I’ll probably not bother combining running with pals and doing SOTA again! I think I’ll keep mountain radio to working on my own schedule and save dragging other folk along, giving myself plenty of time to faff with masts and suchlike.
The silly thing was, I’d considered chucking a pair of wee PMR446 walkies in my bag so that I could give something to my pals to try and avoid something like this happening. Whether or not PMR446 would’ve worked down in Glen Tilt might’ve been a different story though…
Activation log: Sotadata3
Strava route: Strava Flyover 3D replay
Source: I ran it (the Sneem to Killarney via Kenmare Kerry Way Ultra and the Waterville 130km races).
