A couple of days ago, I was seized by the urge to get back out on the hill. Neatly coinciding with the summer solstice, I threw together a route through the Pentlands which would take in six summits, half of them SOTA-able.
Today dawned bright and sunny - and, being a little anxious that I’d be late (I had planned to be out the house at 0900), I naturally woke up around six thirty, only to doze off again some time in the half-hour before my alarm went off.
So I set off on around five hours of sleep, expecting that I might want to cut the trip short. A bus took me to Balerno, and sun and low winds accompanied me as I crossed the Thriepmuir Reservoir - apologies to GM7RYR, whom I was attempting to contact unsuccessfully on GB3ED.
Two hours of gentle climb took me to West Kip, and it was somewhere around here that I realised I was an hour out. My first SOTA activation in BST; I had an hour more than I expected! So I took a little longer than planned at the summit of West Kip and - only half a mile later - East Kip too. Neither of them are SOTA summits, though, so I didn’t dawdle too long.
Half an hour later, at 1200 UTC, I reached the summit of GM/SS-125 Scald Law, which is gloriously long and flat. It was here that things went a little wonky…
I had a QSO with GM1JNP on VHF calling, and promptly gave him the wrong summit reference! A few minutes later, Jack @GM4COX came through, and Ewan @GM4MTC shortly after. Things went quiet after that; I think that a radio misconfiguration might be to blame for that one, but it does mean that although I had a couple of contacts, I couldn’t make out a callsign for any of them. My first unsuccessful activation attempt!
I packed up around an hour after arriving, and began a fairly steep ascent down to The Howe, followed by a similarly steep ascent along a fairly minimal path as I ascended towards the summit of GM/SS-167 Black Hill. This path doesn’t have much to recommend it, and I took copious breaks, reaching the summit at 1515 UTC.
I set up and was immediately fielding a pileup; in the space of ten minutes I worked Duncan MM0GOG, MM0XUP, Mark @2M0IIG, Cameron MM0XCS,@MM0HAI, MM0RTO, and Jim GM0UIN. Once I’d caught my breath, MM0LNG came on, followed by a veritable torrent of my friends operating supervised from MS0RHL Radio Hacklab - at my local makerspace! A lovely surprise, and I had a further 5 QSOs with that callsign before packing up. A note here to commend MM0HAI, who - as I was descending - came back on air as “unicycle mobile”! I wish I could have seen it.
The route I had come up with was not without eccentricities, and my route took me along the northwest flank of Bell’s Hill, before turning ESE towards the reservoir. A nice slow climb to Capelaw Hill followed in stunning golden light; I took my time, enjoying the weather, and summited at 1900 UTC. By this point, I was back in range of my local repeater, so I got to chat with C’tri MM9CRT, Ricky GM1PLY, and Chris @MM0UHR as I sat for a few minutes, catching my breath and snacking.
1945 saw me reach the summit of GM/SS-171, which I last activated in March. C’tri MM9CRT was kind enough to spot me and was followed in short order by Chris MM0UHR, Mark 2M0IIG, Scott 2M0VSR , and Mike MM0MQN , all in the space of 25 minutes. With the sunset behind me, I descended towards Swanston and then Lothianburn, aching and sunburned but utterly at peace.
All in all, I walked 25km/15 miles in 13 hours (with copious breaks), over which distance I gained and then shed 1400m elevation and summited 6 hills. 21 QSOs across 15 stations, with two summits out of three activated. This is the longest hike - both in distance and duration - I’ve ever done, and I’m enormously grateful to everyone who worked me. The morale boost of a QSO is always welcome; but on a day as daunting as today, they made all the difference. Thank you.
73s,
Yasha