In reply to G6DDQ:
Ah! Memories! I may be wrong but I seem to remember Joe Brown selling those sacs in Llanberis before Karrimor took them on. I wore three out, wish I had one now, I don’t like the current designs!
My first harness was a Whillans, it was almost fun falling off in one of them! I also had a McInnes Terrordactyl hammer/axe, guaranteed barked knuckles every outing but what a grip: with one of those just 5cm into clear ice I held a well-known climber on a very rare fall, it took both our weights!
And as if to prove the original point of your thread, today was miserable up here in the Lakes. From the wind noise, it sounded a bit rough with you as well. I hope you both got down okay.
Sorry to anyone still wanting LD-035 and LD-037. The static from the sleet on Great Mell made it just not worth risking the rig. Guess what? Exactly the same two hours later on LD-037. The wind was even stronger here so could only run the dipole.
The MWIS forecast for tomorrow is dire so it looks like a bye. Might have to pay another visit to the Outdoor Shops in Keswick.
Sounds spookily like my own experience of the Mells just over a year ago. We never got the 4 contacts on LD-035 as a result, and it was one we were toying with for tomorrow. In the end we decided to do NP-026 - another where we ended on less than 4 contacts (in fact the only other one that we have never reached the 4 QSO mark on). But looking at the forecast, I have decided that tomorrow is CANCELLED!
I think the weather up here has been decidely better than you’ve been having. It was quite sunny most of this afternoon and the wind was a bit blustery. However, by the time I had finished on Scald Law SS-125 and had a quick run up to the top of Carnethy Hill (only a mile from Scald Law) the weather was closing in. The wind speed had doubled at least and there were some heavy spots of rain. It was warm enough to sit out in just a sweatshirt on Scald Law but an hour later standing still on Carnethy to take a few photos was decidedly chilly. I needed a brisk walk back down to warm up.
Sorry to hear about the trials and tribulations on Saturday Richard - I was in the queue waiting to work you S2S when you QRT’d on LD-035. Fully understood - Paul G4MD and I had had a 10 minute session of static rain up on SW-001 just a few minutes earlier - yes, it even wiped out 5MHz. We had everything thrown at us up there - rain, sleet, snow and hail, all on 30 to 45 mph winds.
Sense prevailed in the afternoon and we changed the virtually trackless SW-005 for the easily accessed SW-010. Even without the benefit of a map and having to work from memory, the change of summit was vastly safer than that we had planned for. Many thanks to Don G0NES for announcing the change for us on the website.
Personal smacked hand for not having a pre-determined Plan B on this occasion.
