Scafell Pike & Pike of Blisco from Dungeon Ghyll

Activation Reports
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I arrived at the National Trust camp site at Great Langdale on Friday evening, to allow an early start for my planned circular route taking in G/LD-024 Pike of Blisco and G/LD-001 Scafell Pike.
The campsite was fully booked, but still plenty of space between tents. The 11pm noise cut off was almost fully observed, shout out to the Italians who arrived at 10:50pm, debated how to put their tent up, then hit each tent peg about 30 times. All quiet after 11:30pm, so no grumbles really.

I set off for Pike of Blisco just after 8am. The weather forecast predicted cloudy but dry, I packed my waterproofs anyway.

I enjoyed getting to the first summit of the day, Pike of Blisco G/LD-024, because I felt I’d had to climb to get there, using hands as well as feet. This is not a walk on summit, unless there is an approach I didn’t see. Great fun. The radio was good to, I found M0NOM/P - Mark on Helvellyn for my first contact and GW4TQE/P on GW/NW-043 for a second S2S.I soon had six contacts in the log and could have stayed longer, but this was to be a long day, and I had to get moving.

I passed a few Wainwright summits on the way to Scafell Pike, but I’m not familiar with WOTA and wasn’t sure how to activate them.

Scafell Pike, G/LD-001, was busy both with people and radio traffic. I was not prepared for the amount of calls I was getting and struggled at some points, especially when I was approached and asked what I was surveying! Then somebody started flying a drone about. So much for peaceful mountain tops! Anyway hope that goes some way to explain why I’d given out a 59+ signal report, yet they’d had to repeat their call three times. Great fun though. Two more S2S this time with G6WBS/P - Shane on G/LD-020 Dale Head and GM4VFL/P - Andrew on GM/SS-092 Millfore. Thanks to all the other chasers as well, hope it wasn’t too frustrating getting your call into the log.

Some stats from the day are: Distance 22.9 km, Total climb 1715 m, Duration 11 hours 15 minutes. Unnecessary items carried and never used: Folding chair and Yaesu FT-70 handheld.

Equipment used: Yaesu ft-817, external battery and vertical dipole.

route
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An epic trip, was it all done with 2m FM? This seems very popular in the LD.

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Yes, all 2m FM.
If I was doing it again I would have left the 817 & folding chair behind and just gone with the FT-70 handheld to feed the dipole. Leaving room for more water and a lighter rucsack at the end of the day. Always learning.

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Great to get you in the log Ian from G/LD-024 S2S.

WOTA registration is very easy Ian: https://www.wota.org.uk/nm_signup.html and I wrote a SOTA CSV import facility that can be used to log SOTA CSV Upload any joint SOTA/WOTA sites (it works out the WOTA reference from the SOTA reference), and then you can either add a record of the same format with the WOTA only reference, or manually upload logs. There are some dedicated chasers, and you only need one contact from a WOTA to qualify it.

Regards, Mark.

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Thanks Mark. I found I had registered along time ago, I logged in and found a small list of contacts awaiting confirmation from previous SOTA activations I’d done. I’ve dug out my old log book and uploaded all contacts from LD summits, going back to 2011.
I don’t activate that often, so it didn’t take me long. Shame I didn’t activate the WOTA summits on Saturday as I went along. Another learning point for next time.

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I’d always argue that a handheld is never an unnecessary item of kit. If you fell over and was unable to get your main station up and running it could be the means of summoning help. It’s like my bothy bag - always there just in case. The day I leave it out my pack will be the day I need it. :grinning:

Well done on the long walk. That’s an interesting combination. Paul G4MD and myself did Pike o’ Blisco with Holme Fell and Lingmoor Fell which would have been easier… though still quite a long day if I recall correctly.

73, Gerald

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