Gummer's How G/LD-050 & Ingleborough G/NP-005

I was down in England for the Blackpool Rally (hamfest) this Sunday past and managed to bag a couple of summits on the way and on the return.

Gummers’ How LD-050

This is a simple summit with a good sized car park nearby. It’s only a short walk, about 25mins from the car park to the summit. There’s an excellent path all the way. Once near the summit there’s an easy path around the back which I missed and the easiest of scrambles around the front. I think my hands came out of my pockets twice. The WX was 50% blue sky but there was a very strong wind blowing, I decided that as 2m FM would work here, I would not bother with HF.

Antenna was a 2m ribbon feeder J-pole on a handheld 5m fishing rod driven by an FT-817 at 2.5W. With the gusting wind, it was a struggle at times to hold the antenna vertical. A total of 17 contacts were made on 2m FM. I had my 23cms handheld and both the 3 element PCB Yagi and a Double Quad. Having set up a sked with Brian G4ZRP previously, contact was made easily from my sheltered location using the PCB Yagi and 1W, we were 52 to 53 both ways. The signals were better when I moved up to the trig but it was too cold to stay in the wind. A test with the Double Quad showed it to be about 1S point better. Bob G6ODU tried but sadly nothing was heard by me or him.

This is a simply wonderful summit with fantastic views, I want it moving to near my QTH so I can do it everyday.

Looking North up Windermere

Looking NW

A wider angle North view

Local stone trig point.

Ingleborough G/NP-005

This fine looking mountain can be seen as you drive down the A65. It looks quite impenetrable from some directions. For this I parked near the Hill Inn Pub. You can probably park here on a Monday because the pub is closed but there are lots of signs suggesting why you don’t want to park if you are not a customer any other day. The walk starts near a small building a hundred metres up the road. There’s an excellent path at first, the as you cross farm land and go through gates there’s nothing obvious but you would need to try to get lost. Finally you are on a well made path that climbs past Limestone Pavement. Through another gate and the path is now flagged or wooden boards. This is to protect the delicate peat from thousands of boots.

You walk up to what looks like a vertical wall a hundred or more metres high and only when up close can you see the very steep stone staircase. It’s a very easy climb but was more exciting coming down when the stones were wet and a bit slippy. From the top of the stone staircase it’s a few minutes on an obvious path across the plateau to the summit wind shelter, cairn and trig. A fantastic stone shelter has been built here and on a grey and overcast day with a bitterly cold wind it was very welcome.

Again I only operated 2m FM, it was obvious the weather would close in so I couldn’t be bothered setting up HF to get everything wet. 2m FM was easy with plenty of contacts. The rain, well drizzle came but again you could tell it would blow through. I noticed my J-pole goes badly off tune when wet, I had to wipe the water drops off to keep the 817 happy. Another 2.5W activation with 12 contacts made, not bad for a Monday afternoon.

More 23cms skeds had been made and this time Brian was 55 at times using the PCB Yagi. You could tell when the rain/drizzle moved out of the path as his signal came up. Geoff G6MZX had gone from his QTH in Thornton-in-Craven to a local high spot and called in. He was 59+++ and no matter where I pointed the antenna he was a constant 59+ signal. I was pleased to get 2 in the log this time on 23cms.

These 2 activations are my 1st 23cms contacts since I wrote the Microwave Award scoring code so it was good to get something in my own log. Both contacts with Brian would entitle me to claim the 100kms certificate as the Gummer’s How path was 107km and Ingleborough 106km.

The wonderful Ribblehead Viaduct.

Trig pont and summit cairn on a now miserable day.

Looking up to Ingleborough from the boardwalk. There’s a slight nick in the skyline just left of centre, this is where the path climbs onto the plateau. It’s easy really, just looks hard.

Limestone Pavement.

It’s a long time since I’ve bagged an NP summit. The last few years I’ve been down this way the weather has stopped me with either wind, rain, snow or all three. Not this time! There are plenty of great looking summits in this part of England and I’m looking forward to getting down here to bag some more.

Ingleborough was my 400th SOTA activation since October 2006.

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Hi Andy

Congrats on the 400 :smile:

Thanks for the reports and the pics - two wonderful memory stirrers. Crouching on the leeward side of the summit outcrop of Gummer’s How watching the wind-blown rain swirling in the light of headtorch while struggling to make 4 contacts on 2m FM… And Ingleborough exactly as pictured, clints and grikes taking me back to far off days of O level Geography, then those fantastic views of Ribblehead viaduct…

Almost tempted to go back!

73 de Paul G4MD

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Every time I get to this point I am kn… sorry, tired out. This is nearing the top of the last climb on the Yorkshire Three Peaks. I do it once a year with a charity group from work (15 times so far). I can’t say I look forward to that bit with 20 miles already done and by now some very tired (and sometimes emotional!) people who need a lot of coaxing to finish it off, plus the walk back to Horton to finish it.

Lovely hill though.

What’s the point of temptation if you don’t give in to it?

Brian

PS Andy, we’ll swap you those two for the Ben, and throw in Tryfan!

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Nice report Andy.

G/NP-005 is a favourite of mine, I tend to do my birthday activation from there each May, I will no doubt be there again this year using my birthday rig, my first RockMite, which is for 20m.

I’m glad you enjoyed your trip up my birthday mountain, it does feel like a fair swap though as I managed my first GM activation on Friday last week. I think it was the hardest SOTA point I’ve ever earned! We were on holiday on Mull and GM/SI-167 was the nearest hill to our holiday cottage. First of all, I persuaded my XYL to drop me off at a cattle grid in order to start the walk in, only I’d picked the wrong cattle grid! My GPS soon showed my error, so I had to walk through thick pine forest (plantation) for a few km - not easy! A few deer were spotted in the clearings, and eagles were flying overhead.

Eventually I reached the summit, a bit later than intended. I set up my home brew dipole on a 4m windsock pole, only to have the second section from the top snap due to the wind. I managed a quick fix with some sticking plaster from my first aid kit. I managed only a couple of contacts on 30m, I was almost starting to think that I wouldn’t manage to qualify. I moved on to 20m CW and luckily I found a nice quantity of willing chasers, phew!

I’d agreed to meet my wife at the (wrong) cattle grid at 1330 and time was running out, luckily I found a nice straight clearing leading straight down to the road through the trees.I hit the road and walked back along to the cattle grid, reaching it at 1328! My wife duly appeared a few minutes later. I was pleased to have bagged my first GM summit ( I summited Ben More GM/SI-003 in 2001, but that was just under a year before SOTA started.)

Upon arriving home on Sunday evening, I discovered a tick on my arm - I can only think I picked it up on my SOTA activation (deer). I wore a long sleeve t-shirt that day and full trousers despite the glorious sunshine. My XYL successfully removed the tick with fine tweezers and the area of the bite is thankfully fine.

I hope you find the English summit for Scottish summit trade is a good deal!

73, Colin M1BUU (MM1BUU/P)