Sgribhis-bheinn GM/NS-139 is the UK’s most Northerly mainland SOTA summit. I’ve activated the most Northly in the UK, Saxa Vord GM/SI-157 on Unst in Shetland in 2017. That was simple, Edinburgh to Aberdeen, ferry to Lerwick, drive to end of Mainland, ferry to Yell, drive to end of Yell, ferry to Unst, drive to end of Unst. Drive up into AZ on the old Army exclusive RADAR access track to find the RADAR being restored to full operation (because of that nice Mr. Putin) and nearly get arrested. Activated after a lot of sweet talking.
But Sgribhis-bheinn is harder! So I first discovered this summit when starting SOTA and then I discovered you have two routes to get there. The summit is in the huge seriously remote Cape Wrath Peninsula that is not connected to the UK road network. Known as Am Parbh, it has only 2 humans resident and they run the cafe in the now automatic lighthouse at the most North Westerly point in the UK mainland. The routes are: walk in from the South on The Cape Wrath Trail, out along the lighthouse road and get the passenger ferry. Or get the passenger ferry and the visitor minibus. The driver of the minibus is an excellent bloke but is somewhat bored driving the awful condition road 4 times a day so if you want anything special such as a drop-off and pick-up, then you have to be interesting to him. Andy MM7MOX had booked us places but when we signing in there was an issue. Dropping us off no problem and collecting us on the return journey was no problem. But that was the same bus we went out on and the would be hardly any time for radio. We wanted collecting on the last bus and he could not guarantee us spaces. When Andy explained why we need time, radio, SOTA and the fact no radio activity had taken place he was much more ammenable to our “interesting story”. So if you want a special trip entertain the man. Oh and the last thing making access difficult is it is a massive military firing range. The only place in W. Europe were Air Force, Army and Navy conduct joint exercises and they shell the are from the sea, bomb it, strafe old tanks, shoot mortars and generally test funky weapons.
So to recap: to get to the summit, you need no military exercises, a ferry place, a minibus place (you could walk) and acceptable weather. So quite a few ducks to get in a row. And for me and Andy in the Edinburgh area it was a 7hr drive to stay with Andy’s mum in the Flow Country then a 2hr drive to Keodale on the day in question. A bit of effort needed.
Now the WX has been stunning and was now starting to change. We were meant to go on Monday 26th but changed to Friday 23rd. We got the most exquisite WX, the last good day. Brilliant blue skies, strong sun, little cloud. It was windy enough to keep the Midges down. The wind was strong but not gusting. Almost perfect WX, the active sunspot had caused some flares but nothing we could do about that.
We got to Keodale for 0715Z which meant we were up a 0430Z to take drugs, have breakfast and do the 2hr drive. At the car park we had a second breakfast of Pain au chocolat which I was able to metabolise as my diabetes drugs were now working 
Then we got in the boat at 0815Z and ten minutes later were on the far slipway.
The view eating second breakfast waiting for the ferry. That boat is the ferry! Looking down the tidal Kyle of Durness. Middle distance on the left is Beinn Spionnaidh GM/NS-046, behind that is Cranstackie GM/NS-038. In the far distance are the Quartzite twins of Arkle GM/NS-042 and Foinaven GM/NS-023. The lush green land on the right is Am Parbh/Cape Wrath.
In the bus and off we went. I got a few texts as we travelled what is laughingly called a road at 10mph in the Transit based minibus. It is a public road so any vehicle needs MOT and insurance, just because it’s not connected to the road network doesn’t absolve you from obeying the law! Texts? Yes, my EE phone on Band 20 (800MHz) had full strength showing on the S meter… madness! We were dropped around NC310706 and my phone had a full or 3/4 full strength signal the whole time.
So we jumped out and set off and promptly got nowhere fast. The ground was dry after 5 weeks of no rain and wind but nothing prepares you for the ground. The grass/heather/moss etc. was amazingly deep and each step caused our feet to sink about 150 to 250mm into the vegetation. The ground underneath was firm-ish but it was very energy sapping and quite hard work to walk on the flat. I’d give a simple rule of thumb that if your favourite walking program gives you times to walk that you should double those times to allow for the ground. In fact once we started to climb the ground got much easier and even the slope didn’t slow us as much as the thick grasses had.
And just like that we were at the top. And it was a visual treat. I don’t think we could have asked for much better WX.
Looking NW at the trig point Sgribhis-bheinn GM/NS-139
Now this is a live firing range and everyone is told to avoid any debris. There was lots. Andy MM7MOX rides a motorbike and is much more observant than I am and he spotted large amounts of shrapnel on the ground, a dummy mortar round and hundreds of rounds of NATO 7.62x51mm GPMG ammunition with the disintergrating links.
40mm mortar round. Aluminium case and cast iron fragmentation at the top. We didn’t know if this was a dummy training round or something that hadn’t gone bang so we didn’t touch it / move it. Glove for scale.
GPMG rounds. Obviously all spent and examined. L45A1 stamped in them means “tracer round”
Not everything is so ugly… a Grass Eggar moth with an EU 43 boot for scale.
At the top we setup 2 stations. Andy + FT818 + link dipole for 40-10m and flowerpot for 2m. Myself 50m away with a KX2 + trapped EFHW for 40/30/20 (but the KX2 ATU makes it work on everyband.) Andy’s 818 has an intermittent HF fault so he started on 2m. He intended to do SSB later and I was doing CW only but as his radio would not work I did some 40m SSB at the end to offer the summit to non-CW stations.
Looking towards Canada and Andy MM7MOX’s antennas.
My setup looking East towards Balnakiel Bay (sandy beach) and the entrance to Loch Eribol. It was starting to cloud and haze up to the West now.
Another disaster solved… Andy’s hat blew off as we arrived in the strong wind and he caught before it dropped off a 100m very, very steep drop!
I managed to work 6 on 30m CW(F, HB9, EA, G, I, OH), 6 on 17m CW (OH, F, I, EA), 2 on 10m ( I, F ), 5 on 15m (S5, F, SV) and 11 on 40m SSB (G, GM, LA). I also wandered over and worked on 2m FM QSO into The Western Isles.
During my time on CW Andy wandered over with a stupid grin on his face… he had just managed to qualify one of the UK’s most remote summits on 2m. It was because VHFers out here do like a visitor to come and play. He had 2m FM and SSB QSOs to the Western Isles plus QSOs to Wick and to my friend Martin GM8IEM near Lochinver, a non LOS path. ISTR we celebrated with either mini pork pies or jelly babies 
That’s just super cool isn’t it, the 2m qualification not the food!
Whilst at Andy’s station I took some photos of his awesome views.
Looking to the end of the world! Cape Wrath lighthouse can just be seen at the end of the peninsula… keep going and next stop is Newfoundland. The bay is Kervaig and there is a bothy there. That’s one of the best coastal views I can recall in the last 25 years. The breakers sounded amazing.
Oh, go on, here’s the same shot with the lens zoomed in. Bothy and path from the road. That’s a bit of wow view.
Ben Loyal GM/NS-052 in the far centre, Ben Hiel GM/NS-103 to the left. The tide is now out in the Kyle of Durness.
Looking out East, Dunnet Head, the most Northerly mainland point is just discernable in the haze.
I became determined to get Sgribhis-bheinn activated when I saw it from Quinag last October. Here is Quinag in the haze.
And this is the view from Quinag last year, Fashven is the dome summit and Sgribhis-bheinn to the left.
Summit junk! I should say that I had end-stop 4G signal here on EE. Andy’s Vodaphone signal was very strong at my side of the summit and dropping off when he was down slightly out of the wind. But both are viable from the top for spotting etc.
End of May in Scotland… Buff and Hat, Hagloffs Belay Jacket over a fleece! I was just nice in the sun and wind dressed like this.
Fashven GM/NS-124. For a while I thought we may be able to do both. No the ground is too slow to allow it and meet the bus. Quinag to the right of Fashven and Beinn Spionnaidh is the big hill in the distance. Just behind Fashven is Farmheall GM/NS-108. Farmheall can be reached by foot without needing rocket shorts, hover boots, boats, planes or Star-Trek transporters.
We’d decided on a sensible pack up time so we could do a bit more exploring on the way back to the bus pickup point. The walk back was uneventful and the bus driver did as he promised, reserved 2 seats for us. Back to the slipway, ferry back and we had 25 minutes chill out time before the 2hr drive back home.
I’ve been wanting to come here and do this summit since Easter 2009. I’ve always found some reason to do something else rather than actually do it. Seeing it in person last year was the motivating force but the whole weekend of events was only possible because I piqued Andy MOX’s interest and he arranged much of this and his mum was happy to allow bearded, grey giffer to stay in her house. And boy did she look after us.
Watch this space because me, Andy and Alan MM0VPM have got more SOTApeditions planned for Am Parbh.
I have a photo of the bite when it was removed with my tick extractor and I’ll watch this for the next week or so just in case.
