SS-138 and new summit activation

Today is one of the rare chances when Mrs FMF can come walking with me. We dont have a huge time window and she has always wanted to climb up our local summit so that is what we intend to do.

However…

I was looking on the Relative Hills web site to see that my local summit West Cairn Hill SS-138 has been deleted from the the RHB list and replaced with its sister East Cairn Hill. SS-138 is STILL a valid SOTA summit but I have emailed the association manager and SOTA management team to ask for a reference number for East Cairn Hill as that is now classed as the Marilyn.

I don’t have a number yet but the SOTA manual says you can activate potential new summits and should they be issued a reference number you can retrospectively claim the points. So I intend to activate this hill not West Cairn Hill.

This is your chance to work a new, never before activated summit with the possibilty it will become valid. If it is issued a number it will be worth 2 points. So hopefully there’ll be some people who want to work this prospective hill and NT15 square for the WABers. If it doesn’t get number then there’s no real loss!

Looking forward to working the speculators later today.

Andy
MM0FMF

In reply to MM0FMF:
I have also looked at the Relative Hills publications, and must agree that East Cairn Hill is the one that must count, at least according to the latest published information. I find it quite incredible that East Cairn Hill has ‘grown’ some 5 or 6 metres to overtake West Cairn Hill like that. The original surveys of all of the surrounding hills must now be suspect, to say the least.
I remember that my GPS was within 1 metre on West Cairn Hill, i.e. 562 metres. Did you have a chance to do a GPS-check on East Cairn Hill, I wonder?
73 de Ken

In reply to GM0AXY:

I’m glad you agree Ken and thanks for the nice chat on the summit today. No GPS yet Ken, I’m still try to learn how to navigate using just a map and compass. Looking on my OS sheet 65 Edition C, the height given by the cairn for East Cairn Hill is 561m and the other summit of the two is not detailed. However, the online 1:50000 and 1:25000 both give the secondary summit of East Cairn Hill as 567m. I’m not sure if the old surveyors simply missed the detail off the map leading to West Cairn Hill (shown as 562m) being given Marilyn status.

I was delighted that so many people wanted to give me a call on the chance that we might be able to get this hill onto the list. If we dont, I still had an enjoyable time. Sarah (Mrs. FMF) thoroughly enjoyed the walk and the weather was unbelievable. The car was parked in some shade at the end of the public road and the thermometer was reading 23C when we returned at 15.20z.

I was up on The Thieves Road and West Cairn Hill on Jan 2nd this year and it was very wet. In fact the walk in convinced me that GoreTex boots do actually keep your feet dry as my feet were in 2 to 3 inches of water along most of the hilly parts. Today, everything up there is a dry as a tinder box. This was the first activation where I didn’t need a wooly hat and gloves. In fact I could have done with shorts on instead. I saw several Peacock butterflies up on the summit, and that does seem very early indeed. I’ll have to ensure I put some suncream and midge repellent into the SOTA bag for the next activation!

Many thanks to all those chasers who gave me a call just in case. It was really appreciated.

Andy
MM0FMF

In reply to MM0FMF:
I have now double-checked my latest copy of Explorer 344 1:25000, and indeed it states that the eastern most summit of East Cairn Hill is 567 mtrs against 561 at the cairn of the western most summit of East Cairn Hill.
The summit of West Cairn Hill is at 562 mtrs.
The error was made, I think, by the people compiling the list of Marilyns. They have obviously realised the error, and they have recently started to take steps to correct it as evidenced by their website.
So, unless we can get a team to dig down to reduce the height of the terrain at the dip at Cauldstane Slap, by some 10 or so metres, whereby creating 2 Marilyns, West Cairn Hill has to give way to East Cairn Hill.
It is all over to the C.o.M., hi!
73 de Ken