My daughter Alice passed her foundation exam last week and is now, after much deliberation, M7SQT (small quirky tribble - you need to be a Star Trek fan to understand!). My nearest 2020-unactivated SOTA summits are moving out from home QTH Wolverhampton to G/CE and G/SP (although looks like GW will be on the agenda very soon). I opted for Kinder Scout, Sat 04/07/20, and chose the top of Snake Pass as the parking spot as I assumed Edale would be packed. A few cars on the Snake and a few people about but no problem with social distancing.
We set off SW in the mist over Ashop Moor and reached Mill Hill an hour later, when the drizzle became heavier. Heavier rain then became a feature of the rest of the day but it was warm. We turned left and headed SE, down and up onto the Kinder plateau. We eventually reached the trigpoint at OS grid ref. SK077894 at about 1220. This is around 2km from the actual summit but well within the AZ. The rain set in but we found a spot out of the wind, set up the 2m vertical dipole and then retreated to the 2-person storm shelter. We made 6 contacts which we shared between us. It was slow-going and I couldn’t get a phone signal to put on a spot without leaving the rain shelter. So we called it a day and packed up and returned via the outward route.
The conservation people have done a really fantastic job up here. There was much bare peat during my last activation here and this was eroding quickly. The whole area has now been stabilised with a thick coat of vegetation. Fences had to be erected to control grazing but there are numerous stiles and each has its OS grid ref. stamped on it - great for walking in mist as we did. Also, the fencing is a great HF antenna support so everybody wins!
M7SQT at the trigpoint - note the dead trigpoint lying on the ground to the right.
