Martyn and I were based in a lovely cottage near Bala for the last week of the winter bonus period, and activated 11 summits, one a unique and complete for us, Many thanks to the local chasers who enabled me to qualify 10 of them on 70cms. We were lucky with the weather avoiding any serious precipitation while on the hills all week, though some summits were selected on the basis that they would provide some shelter from the wind.
Friday 7th March Corndon Hill GW/MW-013
On our way to the holiday cottage we activated Corndon Hill GW/MW-013. We had intended to activate Gryn Moelfre or Rhialgwm, but were seriously delayed by roadworks on the A14 and accidents on the M54 near Telford and A5 near Shrewsbury, so went for a hill with less ascent.
It was a pleasant walk along the track heading south although muddy in places, and then steep up the path along the side of the access area. As we approached the summit the strong south easterly winds hit us. Caroline decided to brave the wind by setting up the VHF/UHF antenna attached to the summit seat, while Martyn dropped a little lower to set up the HF antenna. Caroline managed to qualify the hill on 70cms before 2m, as the first 2m contact could QSY to 70cms and 6 others followed him, a return to 2m yielded a total of 10 2m contacts and 8 70cms. Martyn also qualified on 2 bands with 7 on 60m and 8 on 40m.
Saturday 8th March 2025: Arenig Fach GW/NW-027 and Mynydd Nodol GW/NW-048.
The day was forecast to be warm, but with a strong south easterly wind, dropping a bit later in the day. We decided to try to do two summits, choosing to do Arenig Fach first since we knew it had a summit shelter. We chose not to use our previous route from the layby on the B4391, in the hope of finding a better route we tried to roughly follow the route posted by Simon G4TJC. There was one other car in the layby when we parked. We headed west along the road to the permitted path and found our way through a few fields to an open gate onto the open hillside. Things then got more difficult as there was no discernible path through the heather, so it was heather bashing upwards. As we got higher the heather was lower and more interspersed with grass, with occasional bits of track to follow. As we approached the summit, we saw signs that it was already occupied with a pole projecting above the shelter.
We popped our head round the edge of the shelter and introduced ourselves to Paul MW0PDV. He had just finished operating on 20m and said that he was happy to leave other bands to us. He had been operating inside the shelter with a smaller antenna than our HF setup, so he pointed out the best position in the shelter for Caroline to set up VHF while Martyn went outside of the shelter to try find a reasonable position out of the wind where he could get up the HF dipole. Caroline ended up with a comfortable position lashing the almost vertical 2m dipole to some wood between rocks. She had good runs on both 2m and 70cms. Meanwhile Martyn was more exposed to the wind, and struggling with the HF dipole, which had been repaired before this holiday and worked fine on Corndon. He eventually managed to get it working enough to make some contacts on 40m, including an S2S with Tom M1EYP for both of us. We both had a 70cms S2S with Richard M1HAX on Shining Tor. Caroline then had a go on 20m while Martyn ate lunch, getting 4 contacts including one S2S though with an uncomfortably high SWR. As we were about to tear down HF, we noticed M3TMX Jordon was on 40m on Ingleborough, and managed an S2S though again with high SWR. A few minutes later Caroline worked Jordon again on 2m, meaning she had S2Ses on 4 different bands.
We descended roughly the way we had come, taking a slightly different route through the pathless heather section, which felt easier, but that’s probably just because down is easier than up! Back at the parking the other car had gone, so we guess that was Paul’s.
We then moved the car towards Mynydd Nodol. We couldn’t see how to park our car by the more northern cattle grid without block passing places or tracks, so continued on to the disused quarry to the north of the second cattle grid where there is lots of space. We walked back up the road to the track north, leaving it to ascend east roughly along the fence line to the summit. The wind had dropped bit. Caroline attached the 2m dipole to a fence post, while Martyn put up the HF dipole. Given earlier HF problems Martyn also worked Caroline’s first 4 2m contacts as contingency, which was prudent as the antenna problems were worse meaning he got nothing at all on HF. Given the lower summit and that we were later in the day, contacts were harder to get, and Caroline ended up with 6 on 2m and just one on 70cms.
The sun was getting low by the time we were heading back to the car, and there was some nice evening light over the impressive bulk of Arenig Fawr which had dominated views for much of the day.
Sunday 9 March 2025: Esgeiriau Gwynion GW/NW-031
The day was forecast to be warmer than yesterday but still with a moderate breeze. We still had one unique summit to do in the area Esgeiriau Gwynion GW/NW-031, which has a reputation of bogginess, so we thought it would be good to try to do it after a relatively dry period. We decided to park at the top of the pass as we were unsure about managing to park for the more southerly approach.
It was a bright sunny day, though with hazy views. The bulk of Aran Fawddwy dominated the view to the west throughout most of the walk. We set off on a path that led past a notice to an area where they are doing peatland restoration, and we needed to backtrack a bit to follow a path on the south side of the fence. At a fence boundary we crossed to the north side of the fence, roughly following it all the way to the summit. Much of the ground was soft and damp, with some drier bits, with several peat hags to be negotiated. However our boots were up to the task, and we avoided going in too deep, so it wasn’t as bad as we feared. Once away from the car park we saw just one other person all day. Walking along the ridge meant that we were able to chase 4 other summits along the way working Viki on GW/SW-004 on both 2m and 70cms, and Ben GW4BML (GW/NW-046), Peter MW0PJE (GW/NW-032) and Richard MW1HAX (GW/MW-038) on 2m.
The summit is fairly featureless, being fairly flat and gently rounded, with a minimal cairn at the summit, where three fences meet. At the summit we could use the peat hags to our advantage, as hunkering down in them provided some relief from the wind. Caroline attached the 2m dipole to a fence post while Martyn used a flatter area a little further north to spread out HF.
Caroline concentrated on VHF and UHF, switching bands several times to get 9 contacts on each with two 2m S2Ses, though one of them was a non-SOTA person who was on Brown Clee Hill, but working to SOTA conditions (near the trig, using an FT-818 and losing his pencil in the grass!). Martyn was now using the backup HF antenna with fewer bands and mostly operated on 60m (4 contacts) and 40m (14 contacts), though we finished off by dropping to 20m for an S2S.
Minimal summit cairn.
We roughly retraced our step on the return, but stayed on the north side of the fence all the way to the cattle grid: this seemed better and a bit drier than the southern side. There was some nice late afternoon light with the sun setting over Aran Fawddwy.
Monday 10 March 2025: GW/NW-043 Cryn-y-Brain and GW/NW-042 Moel y Gamelin
The weather forecasts for the week ahead were ever changing, and with Monday now looking better than previously, we decided to aim at the “Ponderosa pair”. We approached from the north and parked up opposite the now closed Ponderosa Café. We had intended to do GW/NW-042 Moel y Gamelin first, but had noted alerts from Adrian GW4AZS for both summits, so decided to do them in the other order, hoping for some S2S contacts.
So we set off up the transmitter track towards GW/NW-043 Cryn-y-Brain first. Where the track swung right, we took the path which heads straight on up the hill. It started off a little overgrown, but became harder going later on, but we persisted and eventually emerged back onto the main track. As the previous day it was mostly sunny with some high cloud and only hazy distant views. There was still enough breeze that we welcomed shelter. When we arrived at the summit there was nobody else about, so Caroline used the shelter to setup VHF/UHF, while Martyn setup HF a little further east.
As before Caroline concentrated on VHF/UHF and Martyn on HF, calling each other over when there was an S2S to be worked. Despite the permanent antennas at the summit, Caroline had no need of the 2m filter, so was able to work both VHF (15 contacts, 2 S2S) and UHF (6 contacts) with the FT-817 and 2m dipole. Martyn worked 3 bands 60m (6), 40m (18, 2 S2S, including Adrian) and 20m (5, 3 S2S plus one transatlantic).
Having consumed lunch we packed up and descended, this time staying on the track all the way back to the Ponderosa. On the way down we met Adrian who was on his way up: he was going to be active on GW/NW-043 before we completed the longer walk to GW/NW-042.
Once at the summit we moved away from the summit cairn and path both to get a bit of shelter from the wind and to be out of the way of people walking by. This time our S2S with Adrian was on 2m, Caroline getting a total of 20 VHF and 6 UHF contacts. Martyn had reasonable runs on 60m (6) and 40m (19 including one S2S). We had enough time for Caroline to have a run on 20m, getting 16 contacts including one S2S.
Back at the car park we were approached by Aled MW0UPH who Caroline had worked on the summit, and had a good chat while we unpacked and loaded stuff into the car. We don’t often get to meet other activators on the hills, but today we met both Adrian and Aled!
