Mhmm this is longer than I anticipated for what is a relatively plain summit.
Sunday 25th August my wife was attending a craft workshop in Rochdale so after google returned 0 results of “Things to do in Rochdale” I was hoping for dry weather. After dropping her off at the workshop I set the sat-nav for the Pennine Way route from the Holmfirth road and my soundtrack for the drive would be (thanks to the new car having long wave) The Sound of Summer itself. 198Khz LW to join Aggers, Tuffers, Blowers, Boycs and the rest of the team for the final days play in the ashes series. Of all sporting programmes on either TV or radio there is nothing that can come close to Test Match Special.
I had only ever been up this was twice before and both a very long time ago. Once was a trip to Wimberry Rocks to look at some recent hard routes which due to wind we didn’t do (no we didn’t bottle out, it was windy I tell you). The other time was for a friends 21st birthday and he happened to be a Last of the Summer wine fanatic, so we took a minibus to Holmfirth to see the famed sites and sample the ales.
So I was pleasantly surprised that the Saddleworth towns I drove through were picturesque and few good looking eating establishments were mentally noted.
Rising up out of Greenfield, the tops were noticebly shrouded in clag which the car soon entered. Visibility on reaching the layby where the Pennine Way crosses the road was about 100m. This was enough though to see that the tea van was well and truly open. The forecast was for the cloud and mist to lift over the morning, so I reckoned a trip to the tea van for a bacon and sausage butty was well in order. Here I had a Danny Baker moment, would it be red sauce, brown sauce or no sauce at all? I went for red.
I could delay no longer, the mist was still around but I wanted to get moving. So adding a layer or 2 thinking it would be cold I set off along the Pennine Way along the paved slabs. With little view (even the tea van disappeared) I was kind of glad about the path even though it offers little interest other than crossing a couple of steep cloughs. The streams were gentle and crossing was easy. Uphill all the way to the summit, never overly steep but my thoughts of it being cold were way off. Stopping a couple of times to remove items I was left with just shorts and t-shirt despite the mist. Stopping on the final steeper part to chat to a park ranger who was doing some path restoration works. Arriving on the summit plateau in dense mist and cloud I followed the path which now wound its way round and over bog and pools and finally the trig came into view.
Passing this I set up on what looked like a decent peat hag in the middle of a pool. Up went the antenna which is basically an old rucksack special (1/4 wave on 2m) mounted on 2 meters of 22mm waster overflow cut into rucksack sized chunks with plastic slot-in joiners. The whole thing weighs 477g and allows me to mount the 1/4 wave at about 2.5m in height in under 1 minute.
Calling CQ on 2m brought in a quick flurry of contacts, but I seemingly had an problem on receive with the vx7 cutting in and out. Thanks to G6ODU for the spot which certainly helped with the flow of contacts too. The audio issue continued and I figured it was breakthrough from something, but I couldn’t see what. It was only while in conversation with Karen 2E0XYL and she mentioned Holme Moss and it clicked. At that moment the mist lifted and looming up into sky a little way over the bogs was the source of my issue. After working 12 chasers including into Wales and Phil G4OBK in Pickering I also concluded that this wasn’t a bad hill for VHF after all. Hopefully my final qso was good and it really was G6MML as I like to think we worked for that one with me on fading batteries and the breakthrough getting worse. So if you are G6MML then thank-you for your perseverance.
With the mist now lifting the descent was pleasant with some views down into Holmfirth. I only wished I’d carried up a wardrobe to slide down in.
Back to the car to find the test-match had taken a pleasurable turn, and hopefully a dramatic climax to end a good series on. I was early to pick up my wife so took a detour to look at Freeholds Top but it really didn’t take my fancy today, so returned to the center and told my wife to stay as long as she wanted as I would sit in the car with my summer friends. Finally arrived home, pulling up as Ian Bell was run out and the umpires taking the players off for bad light to end the match in a draw. Even though England would have won if they had stayed on, I think without the somewhat contrived nature enforced by losing so much time to the weather, a draw was a fair result.
Ian
G7ADF