Hi All,
Activation Report GW/NW-042 Moel y Gamelin 26th April 2009.
We knew we wanted to return to Ponderosa, as we had really enjoyed Cyrn Y Brain. So we decided to do Moel y gamelin, before the summer ants(Tourists) turned up in droves.
We set off in plenty of time to ensure a brew and toilet break at the Ponderosa. Arriving at 9am UTC hoping for approx 45 mins to Summit. We were nicely seated and it was relatively quiet,nice hot brew then off we set.Looking up the well marked path,nicely grassed for comfort under foot. Nice speed as not too steep and working well. we filmed the event using newly purchased seconhand Video camera,very shaky and will need to be well edited before putting on Flicker.Path changed to rough,loose stoney and bit slow going up to summit of Moel Y Faen which you have to ascend then go beyond following path to Cairn at top of Moel Y Gamelin.
The path from Faen goes down quite steeply behind and then is quite steep and rocky up to cairn at Gamelin. This is not well presented on OS Map as contours look quite a good gap. Today as you will see from video, the farmer had been threshing the Heather and had bailed it ready for storage,these were all over the hillside and blocked the path also. we got to final ascent with Cairn insite and we were on time for alert.
Found a decent camp about 5 metres from cairn in the heather that was out of the wind, setting up the beam on the rod was more difficult than anticipated as for the first time I needed to use the guy ropes. There is no place to support the perch rod on this summit,those that have been before will know so this info is for the new comers like myself. got set up in the end,with beam horizontal at top and 4m dipole attached vertically for FM on the side of the rod. Kicked off on 144.300 30 mins late, QSY to 310 after called back by Roger G0TRB in Tamworth must have been sitting waiting for me, he promised a spot and soon calls were coming from all directions all doubling up. Finally segragated them all in to some sensible list. Excellent S2S with G7SKR/P Dave on SP016 (my Virgin Summit on SOTA) great to work Raw Head finally. 10 calls on 2M SSB then went quiet. Tried calling on 432.200 SSB a number of times but no one got back to me.( Sorry Gerald no 70cm today) went to 4M for final shout before descending got 3 calls back all from Midlands for some reason, 3 nice 5-9 signals report on 4m,Wouxun working well on 4.5 watts and a simple wire 1/2 wave dipole.
Descent was similar to ascent,with loose rocks and a couple of steep sections,needing to be careful if you new to the terrain. Looking from summit of Moel Y faen, the Ponderosa car park was full of (ants). getting down we hoped for a nice lunch here but queue was out of door so decided we were out of place amongst all the Bikers and headed off to look for pub with Lunch Menu.
Finally, we had a run mostly home and decided as Elaine wanted a bit of emergency shopping we arrived at the Old Mill House in Broughton (by Tesco)for a £5 Sunday Roast well worth it.
Thanks for all who contacted me today and as usual all logged on database, one photo on Flicker showing my thinning hairline,with video to follow when I get gist of editing it.
73
Tony
