I drove to the start point for Queensberry after activating Cairnharrow GM/SS-191 near Gatehouse of Fleet, so this was an afternoon walk. I started my 3.2 mile walk in from the public road at Mitchellstacks NX 965960, six miles from the A76.
This was a good walk on better surfaces than the previous 4 boggy summits I had walked to on this two day expedition. A graded track for the most part took me to Brown Knowe and then I had a dry moor with quad tracks from there to the summit. 5m contours are shown here on the map, making the summit look steeper than it was, however I was tired after the previous day so it took me 110 minutes to walk the 3.2 miles / 1630 ft ascent.
This was the turn off the track on to the moor at Brown Knowe - New House can be seen beyond, with another ruin that bit further away. A small cairn was encountered at 680m within the activation zone as I rounded out on to the plateau, but the main cairn at 697m was another 400m further on. The large pile of stones and shelter was a pleasure to see and use, and allow me to finally tick Queensberry off my priority list of summits that I wanted to visit in the region:
I netted 22 contacts in 22 minutes on 20m CW and 40m CW/SSB - not a bad rate, which included two stateside contacts. I had no callers on 2m FM:
It took me 83 minutes to get back to the car where I changed into fresh clothes for the drive back to North Yorkshire, punctuated with a customary stop at the KFC in Penrith. I drove 440 miles on the two day trip, walked 18 miles and climbed 4650 feet all told.
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