G4OBK SOTA Fair Snape Fell G/SP-007 July 2013

After leaving Hail Storm Hill I drove to Chipping, an old quaint Lancashire village north west of Clitheroe. I was familiar with the area having ridden a bike around there in the 1970s and 1980s from the area in which I grew up, 20 miles away.  My destination was the road leading up to Fell Foot, a cottage which lies beneath Parlick Hill. From previous SOTA activators reports I knew there was little point driving right up to the cottage so I parked near the Bowland Gliding Club windsock at SD 600443 and set off walking. 

Roadside parking for Fair Snape Fell 200m south of Fell Foot 

Follow the well defined route through the gate by Fell Foot Cottage

The path took me well to left of the gully and at SD 594448 I reached a fence. The path right went over Parlick but I continued straight on to skirt around the western flank to a col close to spot height 398 on the map.

Overlooking Fell Foot - Longridge Fell SP-013 and Pendle Hill SP-005 can be clearly seen

The terrrain reminded of me a walk I did some years ago on the grassy Howgills from Sedbergh up to The Calf via Arant Haw.

This had turned out to be an enjoyable and memorable evening walk with my target in sight throughout - the trig point and pile of stones on the summit of Fair Snape Fell G/SP-007. The route taken is shown below:

Distance walked was 4 miles return with 1000 feet ascent.

As well as enjoying my walk to the summit the air conditions were perfect for the sport of gliding. The Bowland Forest Gliding Club is based at the foot of the hill and several members seemed intent of buzzing me on my way to the summit and also whilst I was operating - here is one:

The ascent took me 42 minutes and I was on the air almost immediately as I was only carrying a Yaesu VX-170 5 watt handheld and vertical dipole for 2m FM.

I operated for 21 minutes and completed 11 contacts:

The view and VHF take off from the fell were superb, especially to the south. I made my way off on the grass path passing Nick's Chair, a feature on the map which I did not identify. (I didn't know that G4OOE had activated this summit, but I know Nick does like a sit down sometimes on his ascents!). On reaching the col I departed from my outward path to descend via the other side of Parlick. When I rounded the hill I saw a quick way down and was amazed how well my knees held up on the descent to Fell Foot. Total time taken for the whole activation was 102 minutes. 

I drove back the 100 miles home to Pickering with another two summits qualified for SOTA in the South Pennines, and another two ticked off my list of 176 English Marilyns.