Should've listened.....

I’ve been doing a few hills down in the Southwest lately for some Winter bonus summits.
When I mentioned that Hods hill GM/SS-131 was on the agenda, I was warned it was a bit boggy.
I had a reasonable drive down to the Daer dam and saw a very colourful sunrise.

Red sky…
I got parked up at the dam and had a view over to a snow covered Green lowther.


Suited and booted I headed up the Southern Upland way following the fence to the summit. The views were quite good over the reservoir and surrounding hills but there was snow blowing in the wind.
The ground underfoot was frozen and I thought this isn’t too bad, what were all these warnings of boggyness ?
I got to the fence junction at the summit and found a spot to setup my shelter.
First off was an sstv transmission from Chris DL1CR/P from DM/NS-122 followed by an s2s on ssb.
40m was a bit strange again, like long skip and qsb , but 15m brought in a big pile up again.
I finished off with a couple of qso’s on 2m and by then my toes were cold.
Meanwhile the snow had stopped and the views disappeared as the cloud moved in.
This also meant that frozen ground had thawed a bit and was now boggy !
Now on the way down I realised how boggy this hill is…
At the end of today I’m a third of the way to MG, I’m not sure I’ll get out on a hill again this year but that’s not a bad place to get to.
Andy
MM7MOX

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I did Sharp Haw G/NP-029 at the end of November during a cold spell. The route to this summit is notoriously boggy (you park your car on Bog Lane which is no coincidence) so I was pleased to see the ground was frozen. That is until I stepped on the ice and it couldn’t hold my weight and I went in the bog anyway! It can definitely lull you into a false sense of security.

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