With a mystery Monday off work (don’t ask questions, just accept the mysterious gifts) and a reasonable looking weather forecast, I decided I would stick the running shoes on and head to Fife for a loop of three summits in a single day out - East Lomond (GM/SS-198), West Lomond (GM/SS-154), and Bishop Hill (GM/SS-187).
This was where I’d had some of my very first experiences of Outdoor Stuff™ as an Air Cadet, doing my bronze Duke of Edinburgh expedition up here many, many years back, and I figured I could still more or less remember the lie of the land. Although the forecast was generally pretty good, I knew it’d be a wee bit breezy, but mostly, I was expecting a good covering of snow after seeing a pal walking up Bishop Hill the previous Friday.
I was a good bit later than planned getting started. First off, I’d driven right to the on-ramp of the motorway before realising I’d forgotten to pack my microspikes for over the trainers, and I figured I’d more than likely need them. I drove home, nipped back to the flat, then swore a lot as I completely failed to find them, eventually remembering I’d left them in the boot of the car “so that I wouldn’t forget them”.
My plan was to get up to the wee car park at Craigmead, which with its elevation of about 280m would act as a good headstart, and work as a nice central point between the three hills to give contingency options if needed. Of course, I drove into Falkland just to find the road up to Craigmead closed, and had to do a bit of mental scrabbling around trying to work out if detouring to the Glenrothes side would be possible, or if that would even be open at all either. Eventually however, some of that old local knowledge resurfaced, reminding me that there was of course, a car park at the mast site just to the east of East Lomond, and with even more height to start with at 340m elevation!
So, off I went, very quickly justifying the making sure I had my microspikes on the short but steep ascent to the first of my hills for the day, East Lomond (GM/SS-198). The previous days’ snow dumps had been trampled down into slush, and that slush had then refrozen into a nice hard sheet of deathtrap ice. Thankfully though, there was enough soft stuff on the steeper slopes approaching the summit lump, and I was able to make fairly easy progress to the top.
As I was getting set up, I had a horrible “it’s going to be one of those days” feeling, as the wind caught my logbook and favourite pen and blew them across the hillside. Thankfully I was able to catch the logbook before it fully turned into a kite, but my trusty RNLI Parker pen was nowhere to be seen. I really liked that pen (an older Parker from before they turned a bit cheap and crap, with a fisher space pen refill inside), but as it was one I’d found lying abandoned at work, I figured it was only fair that maybe someone else gets a lucky find some day (and hopefully not some unfortunate local wildlife). Its dark blue body being hard to see justified my usual method of buying bright orange pens so that they’re harder to lose.
Anyway, after a bit of faffing, I managed to get six contacts in the log fairly quickly, fighting the wind for that one solitary point. I’d brought my Yaesu FT-65, but noticed I was getting about S5 background noise presumably from the nearby mast site, so I decided to put it away and bring out the filter big guns with the trusty FT-270, and had no problems at all. The antenna for the day was a Chinese RH-770 clone, which seems to go pretty well. Question time: does anyone UK based know anywhere that has genuined RH-770s (BNC) in stock at the moment? I can’t seem to find any real ones, just a lot of clones.
Next on the itinerary was the slightly taller of the two Lomonds, West Lomond (GM/SS-154). After doing a bit of negotiating on the way down off the summit lump, there’s a pretty easy big track between the two hills, passing by my planned start point at Craigmead. Again, this was mostly refrozen slush and was a wee bit tricky to pass in places, even with the microspikes on, so progress from East to West Lomond wasn’t quite as quick as I would’ve liked - my usual running had turned into a bit of a bambi-shuffle.
Eventually however, the track ended, and there was nothing else for it other than to humph it directly up the side of West Lomond. The photo above was a view back across to East Lomond from the slopes of West Lomond, where I was pretending to stop to take a photo but really I just wanted a wee bit of a breather from the one-step-forwards-two-steps-back way trek up through the soft snow. Although the haul up was hard work, it thankfully didn’t seem to go on for too long before I reached the top.
The ledge around the summit trig makes for a perfect seat, and this time I was a lot more careful not to lose my logbook or my one remaining backup pen. Once again, the chasers were out in force, and I was able to get seven in the log nice and easily in the space of about twenty minutes, before deciding I’d had enough of the wind, and calling it a day.
My original plan had been to drop off from West Lomond and head across to Bishop Hill, but I was starting to have my doubts about how hard it’d likely be to get across the rougher ground and how much daylight I might have left. With hindsight, I’d likely have had no bother at all getting over, as the ice on the big track between the hills had started to either soften up back into slush or disappear altogether, making the return leg a lot easier to pass.
While the steep snowy slopes of West Lomond had been a slog to get up, they were a lot more fun to descend back off of, with a wee bit of customary bum-sledging at times too.
Thankfully on the way back to the car park there was a nice detour track around East Lomond, and on looking back, there was a noticeable reduction in the amount of snow on the ground in the couple of hours I’d been out.
Once I was back in the car and thawing out, I was left with a slight sense of gnawing dissatisfaction at not managing to get Bishop Hill ticked off while I was here, so I hastily hatched a plan to try and get one more hill on my way home. As I was heading back towards Glasgow anyway, I figured I’d try and have a go at Cairnpapple Hill, about as close as I’ve seen to a drive-up summit in Scotland.
Although conditions were dry but cold and windy upon arrival, just as I’d got the radio out of my bag and got ready to put my first CQ shout out, a sudden very heavy shower dumped a whole load of freezing rain and hailstones down on to me, soaking everything before I’d even had a chance to retrieve my waterproofs. Picking up the contacts this time was slightly harder work, hindered by some audio troubles at my end as I fought the wind and the fact that my FT-270’s mic hole ended up full of water.
So, all-in-all, seven points for the day (two single-pointers, and a two-pointer with three-point winter bonus), and very numb hands. I’ll just need to nip back and do Bishop Hill some other day.
East Lomond Activation Data: Sotadata3
West Lomond Activation Data: Sotadata3
Cairnpapple Hill Activation Data: Sotadata3
Strava activity link: The Two Lomonds | Strava
