We are having a long weekend in the northeast of England. We had a beautiful afternoon walk up Nine Standards Rigg yesterday, today we drove from our overnight stop in Bishop Auckland to get to the Scottish Borders. We had a choice of hills but decided today was going to be the best of the possibly deteriorating weather, so we should get to The Cheviot, a summit we had attempted early in my SOTA career when we had a rapid descent due to a severe thunderstorm (we only managed a mile up the three mile walk that time).
We arrived later than we would have liked because the weather forecast said it was going to rain until lunchtime. As it was it was still raining when we arrived at midday. As we were deciding whether to walk up, the weather seem to clear in the valley and on the tops so we alerted for 2pm (dependent on the WX) and set off.
The first part was uneventful getting to the top of Scold Hill in reasonable time with the ground still frosted. There is a flat bit for half a mile after this point over which we hoped we would gain some time but there was so much water here that it was gooey and deep with rivulets to cross so actually we lost time.
Next was the main climb up an extremely steep slope to the summit plateau where there was some stony tracks to follow. It was here that it started to snow but we were not deterred as it would have been more miserable if it was raining and we would have wondered why we were on a high mountain at the start of winter.
A view of the steep slope before the boggy section and the snow starts to fall
We reached the summit after following the flagstones to the trigpoint where everything was looking pretty covered in blanket of snow. We already knew we would be ending the walk down in the dark so we had limited time on the summit.
We had no mobile data coverage on both phones as we set up the kit. We had alerted for 7.118 but an extremely strong station was parked on it chatting away and not looking like he was going to move any time soon. We were also 20 minutes later than alerted for but we hoped people would be looking around so I called on 7.115. I had a frustrating 10 minutes with no answer but then Nick (G8VNW) in Skipton found me and put a spot on sotawatch. Helen and I then quickly qualified the summit making the effort to get to the summit worthwhile.
The flagstones to the summit and me activating by the trigpoint
It was half an hour of struggling through extremely high QRM; sorry to any that could not get through. At this point it was going to be a walk in the dark regardless, so we decided to have a quick try on 17 metres. Helen walked off to get some mobile signal and briefly had the sotawatch front page but could not get a spot. One of my last contacts on 40 metres, Dave (G0ELJ), kindly spotted me for 18.140. Also thank you to Dave (M0MDA) for the spot.
A nice run on 17 metres followed and as soon as I had a null in the callers, we pulled the plugs to pack up and leave; at this point the clouds were red with the low sun soon to set. We wanted to got passed the boggy bits before it was properly dark which we just managed; we were passed caring now and were not quite so careful when ploughing through the bogs. The last mile and a half was in darkness and by now our eyes became accustomed to the lack of light and did not need our head torches. We got back to the campervan at 5pm, an hour after sunset.
Helen at the trigpoint and a last picture showing the snowy summit and the clear hills behind
Finally we got this summit ticked off. Thanks to all the chasers and especially the spotters without whom I would have had to revert to just chasing any four on the bands to qualify.
Carolyn