Activation report of ‘Scafell Pike’ G/LD-001 - Saturday 22nd October 2022
G(W)4BML/p & XYL
Little Lyra’s Aunty wanted to take her out for the day, so Martha and myself decided to take a journey across the border and activate England’s highest SOTA peak ‘Scafell Pike’ G/LD-001.
It was an early start leaving the home QTH at 06:30 BST heading in the North direction. Approximately 2 hours had past where we decided to stop off for a full English breakfast, this was good summit fuel !
After another 2 hours of driving, we reached our destination - Wasdale Head national trust car park. As Martha and myself are both National Trust members, parking was free! We chucked our hiking gear on, extended our poles and off to go go go it was…… the route taken follows:
We began by following a fast running stream which looked to be coming down the mountain at a fair pace! The Lake District had definitely seen some rain over the past few days! The path we took was known as the tourist route, so you can imagine how worn and easy to follow it was:
After reaching the half way point, we sheltered under a rock to have some bait - the wind was pretty fierce the further up we got but this didn’t affect the mountain sheep, they were still standing strong grazing in the distance:
After trampling over muddy rocks and through deep puddles, we ended up hitting the mist and seeing no further that 10ft in front of ourselves. It was a matter of follow the track and check the GPS making sure we were on the correct path!
Just out of nowhere the wind blew the mist to a side for a brief second and the summit trig was in view 
we had made it!
I managed to find a small Cairn to sit in which sheltered us both from the howling wind and damp misty fog.
The 6m tactical mini pole was erected in the mist with the EFHW antenna attached. My choice of radio was the reliable KX2 using the 14.8v Li-ion battery pushing 12w out.
I began by calling CQ SOTA on 60m managing to work 9 stations itl. I then moved over to 40m and had a nice pile-up adding a further 25 stations to my log with one being a S2S - thanks Robert @M0RWX who was down south on G/DC-002. I finished off on 2m FM only managing 4 itl.
The wx was getting colder, so a hot pot noodle had to be made on summit 
believe me, we both enjoyed it!
Once we were all packed up, a summit selfie was had and we then made a run for our descent.
On our way down the heavens opened and we witnessed torrential rain and hail, this didn’t put us off as we’d had a lovely day together
Just as we reached the bottom, blue sky appeared from above the mist and the sun showed itself briefly for a nice photo to finish the day off:
A great day had up North, challenging wx but we both thoroughly enjoyed our day in G land. I’d like to thank everyone from the SOTA community who called into me, great support as per normal! Sorry I never managed to operate on 20m, the wx took a turn for the worse and Martha was getting pretty cold!
Until next time, 73, G(W)4BML/p Ben & Martha
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