I have been looking at the weather forecast for a couple of days and as time went by the forecasted wind on the summits seemed to be increasing, so I scaled back plans and decided that the humble 2 pointer - Lords Seat (G/LD-033) would work nicely. The forecast - I think was for gusts up to 30 MPH. The car park was calm so I set off quite enthusiastically. At first it was a whisper, then a breeze, then really quite windy and I’m not sure why but by the time I’d reached the summit is was a mad hooley. The initial plan was to put a tarp up but a combination of frozen ground and wind that was starting to reach the sort of strengths where a tarp can convert itself into a hang glider put pay to that idea. Undeterred - after putting a coat on Woody and putting several additional layers on I hunkered down at the side of a vary small outcrop. I was still thinking about the linked dipole and 10m, but having attached the ladder line J Pole to the pole and trying to move it to the vertical I realised that I didn’t have the strength. I don’t know how much wind area a ladder line has but the force was enormous. The final arrangement was 4m of pole with a 2m J Pole ladder line attached jammed behind my back - and it still blew down…. So sorry 10m challenge or not this rapidly became about qualifying as rapidly as possible and getting off the hill. Thanks to all the chasers I did manage 9 contacts, including the S2S contacts, and although it seemed to be windy on the other summits it was probably heading towards unmanageable on Lords Seat…. So apologies for anyone waiting for the 40 and 10 meter spots - they blew away!
And finally it was really nice finding out that I’d been runner up the GM3VLB award. Hopefully I’ll get back up there soon to turn some of the hills Ben activated for the first time into completes. It really is worth exploring the Outer Hebrides!
- Paul (Woody and Jet)
Retreating from the summit…
