Tuesday 19-Aug, Beinn Stumanadh NS-104
Another blustery, showery day and another unactivated summit. My original plan was to do both Beinn Stumanadh NS-104 and Bein Hiel NS-103 today as they lie either side of Loch Loyal, they can tackled from the same parking space as the 15min walk extra is easily the same time it would take to change from boots to shoes, drive and change back to boots. However, I had a lazy morning in the B&B enjoy an enormous cooked breakfast. I’d checked out parking spots by “driving” the area using Google Streetview and had several places to park. This time my preferred spot was free. It’s big enough for 2 carefully parked cars. When I drove past the next day, someone had selfishly occupied 2 spaces with one car. Thinking about others not the driver’s strong point! This was when I heard a plane. I watched an RAF C130 Hercules dip down very low of Loch Loyal and fly between me and Beinn Stumanadh which I caught on camera.
There’s path down to the Loch side and a footbridge here. Could I find the path? I walked through a lot of long wet grass till I found a path that led to the bridge. At this point it was obvious it was gaiter time. I didn’t need them yesterday as the grass was quite short. Here the grass and heather was quite long. Across the bridge, gaiters on, set off again. This is when I noticed the “motorway” sized path leading to the road. How I missed it I don’t know. The path on to the old farmhouse which is now a bothy is best described as a shallow stream linking boggy patches. Even people with webbed feet would find this ground a bit O.T.T. This was what most of the rest of the land was like till 3/4 of the way up the hill. It was much worse than Monday partly because it had rained a lot during the night.
I had to shelter amongst some Rowan trees during a very heavy shower for 20mins. But I still had not needed any overtrousers or waterproof jackets. Any wetness after the odd light shower was soon blown dry and it was only the heavy showers that I need to shelter. At the bothy I had to cross the Allt Ach nan Clach which was full. There was also a new deer fence which is not shown on my 2013 issue maps. However, I could see both a metal vehicle gate and wooden people gate further on. I crossed the burn and almost fell in but caught myself in time. Lucky. Through the gate and I had tocross the burn again but there was a ford which was not too deep. From here there was an ATV track leading the right way.
The ground was no better. Soft grass with wet boggy patches although walking in the vehicle tracks was a bit easier. The track climbed quite steeply then dipped down to another deer fence with both metal and wooden gates around NC631502. It was a delight to find a landowner had bothered to put gates exactly where walkers would want to cross. I’ve climbed over deer fences before and it’s a bit entertaining doing so when you a chubby bloke… will the fence wire take the strain… will I fall off and make a big dent in the ground?
https://www.flickr.com/photos/mm0fmf/14821649469/
I followed the ATV track further until it was time to leave the track and head up the big ramp to the summit. The ground off the track was quite hard work in comparison but it climbed quickly to better drained land.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/mm0fmf/14985379156/in/photostream/
From here it was simply a matter of going up till the ascent leveled off. I had to shelter for a few moments amongst the gullies at the top as another big shower came through. Then a hop, skip and jump and I was at the top. There was a small shelter and I spent 10mins collecting loose rocks and building the wall higher to keep out the wind and rain from my operating spot. In 350+ activations this is the first time I’ve added to a cairn.
With the cairn upgraded it was up with the antenna and on with the satellite spotter. It takes about 4mins from power on for Linux to load on the Raspberry Pi and the satellite modem to boot and gain signal lock on the satellite network. If I start this first then by the time the antenna and FT817 are setup all I need to do is enable Wifi on my phone, connect it the WIfi AP in the rPi and I can start spotting. Which is what I did, again starting on 40m SSB. Both on here and Ben Hutig I could not rig the Inverted V E-W for best UK coverage but had to take one end of the dipole into the wind or the fishing rod would have given up. This affected 40 and 30m coverage noticeably, It wasn’t helped by worse propagation.
40m SSB was not busy, 40 CW was very poor and 30m CW suffered deep QSB. 20m CW again was the best band. I think more to do with using a vertical and so not having the antenna point at nobody in the Atlantic Ocean helped. 20 was lively but with faster QSB. ODX this time was AC1Z and it took me a while to realise the call I could hear under neath others was not LA6? but AC1Z. Yeah, I’m not really that good at CW! All the time I was operating the WX was alternate sun and showers but in the sun and behind my new cairn extension it wasn’t too bad. But I did have on 2 fleeces and a windproof shoftshell with two Buffs on my head. Summer in Scotland 
It took about 30mins longer than I expected due to the horrible ground and having to hide from the rain and this put my schedule back.I had to pass Meall nan Clach Ruadha NS-145 on the way back to the B&B and that’s a nominal 40min walk. As it and Beinn Hiel would both be uniques I decided that Beinn Hiel would be pushing things so I took a more leisurely pace on air. Once all callers had been worked I packed up and headed back the same way I walked in. It was much greyer on the way out but surprisingly warm and I had to shed all the layers as I descended. On the path back I noticed fresh boot prints that were not mine. I finally caught up with another walker crossing the spit of land back to the footbridge. He’d been to check on the state of the bothy. We had a chat and he told me the WX had been “entertaining” when the hurricane remnants blew through.
Just before I got back to the car I got a good view of Beinn Stumanadh against the blue sky and took a photo shortly followed by a huge shower which did a good job of soaking me.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/mm0fmf/14821747388/
At the car I got changed as the shower changed to continuous rain. 15mins later it was still raining when I set off and was raining harder when I got to the parking for Meall nan Clach Ruadha. There’s wet and there’s wet and I was wet enough so that was another summit for another day. Back to the B&B for a nice hot shower.
Total walked: 9.1km, total climbed: 500m
Andy
MM0FMF
