I planned out another SOTA summit bagging mission in late November. I needed to return my son in laws dog back to him in Holmfirth, which is over 80 miles from Pickering. This done en-route after an early start and 130 miles later found me driving in rush hour traffic on the M56 south of Manchester, heading towards the A5 roundabout at Oswestry. I met up with Geoff M6PYG (now 2E0NON) there at around 10.30 am. He had driven up from Malvern to team up with me as the driver for the day. The road route (traced below by GPS) starts from when we arrived at the first summit of four that day, which was Moel y Golfa GW/MW-027, part of the Breidden Hills.
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| The route from Oswestry MW-027 > MW-059 > NW-049 > NW-060 > KFC (GO LARGE)
Just after leaving the parking area below the wood at SJ 285125 we came across a large black dog without an owner. The dog scarpered...more on that later. We didn't locate the steep path indicated on the OS map and so chose to take an easier option to ease the ascent. This enabled us to reach the summit from the car in just 22 minutes. The hill is shaped rather like a whale back in the form of a steep sided, mostly wooded elongated ridge and features twisted and distorted trees disfigured by the fierce winds which must grace the summit on occasion. On this day we had no such winds. Here is the route taken:
The large crooked monument on top of the summit is a tribute to a gipsy called Uriah Burton (Better known as Hughie or Big Just) who died in 1986.
The views to Wales are exceptional from this top
A metal fence runs across the summit - it was an ideal support for our antenna pole. We stayed no more than 20 minutes and made 8 contacts. Best DX being with Colin G4UXH in Milnthorpe at 107 miles / 172 Km, which is pretty good on 2m FM. We used 30 watts and a vertical dipole from our side. 
Returning to the car we were greeted by a lady and the lost dog I mentioned earlier. The lady pointed to a poster on a tree showing a photo of the said dog declaring it lost four days previous. No wonder it was trying to find its way into Geoff's boot.... It wanted to go home having had enough of the elements. The number was rang and the owner hot footed it to Moel y Golfa to collect his dog, no doubt relieved.
We set off to our next summit of the day in the North Wales sector - Allt y Main NW-059. |
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