On holiday with the family up near the lakes and I need to get some more big hills under my belt for my trip next year to Morrocco so thought I would have ago at Skiddaw and maybe try bag it as a SOTA too.
I asked the family if anyone wanted to join me and my Sophie said she would. The XLY said she would take the other 2 and the hounds and do a smaller walk.
It was a beautiful day as we drove to car park and got dropped off, we said our goodbyes and said we would meet back up in Keswick and set off up the trail.
It was quite busy with people going up and few even coming down already. The going was slow as the trail was steep and it was warm in the sun.
Sophie was making better ground then I did, and she had to wait every so often for me to catch up. I’ve got 30 years on her so it was to be expected.
We got to a plateau and had a choice to make, bag Little Man and Skiddaw Lesser Man or go round them, we figured we were up there we may as well get then. I told Sophie I would met her at the top of Skiddaw Lesser Man and she set off at a decent pace; I plodded along after her. 10 mins later I made the summit of Skiddaw Lesser Man. We set off together to summit Little Man and descended to start back up towards Skiddaw.
Whilst it was still very sunny the wind had picked up a bit, it was going to be a little cool on the summit. We had to wait to get the obligatory photo at the trig point as there was another group in front of us.
Once we had the photo we sat down on the leeward side to have some lunch and for me to try and activate the summit.
I was hoping for a good activation after how well Scafell Pike went. I found a free frequency and went back to the calling channel and called CQ SOTA, listening on 145.475.
First in the log was Glen G0SBN who was setting up to do a POTA so was great to get a P2P to start with but it did mean I wanted to get 10 contacts to get the park and not just the 4 for the summit.
Next was Geoff GM4WHA, it always makes mw smile when you get a DXCC using 2M handheld. Then got a little pile up and 4 more contacts to make a total of 6, summit done and halfway to the park. I checked with Sophie to see if she was ok for me to keep going and she was.
Took 5 more minutes and got another Scottish station in the log, then got 2 Northern Island stations which really made me smile. That brought it too 9, so close for the park.
I kept calling and finally got Graham M7IPU, that made it 10! Time to pack up and head down the mountain.
I had thought about doing a there and back route but decided to make it a linear route and head down to Carl Side then to Keswick. I was glad it was a clear dry day as the route down was steeper than the route up and it was scree path. Sophie was a little worried about the slope but I talked her through it and got ourselves down to Carl Side and had little rest to have a drink and snack. I messaged the XYL we were on our way down and she said they were on Latrigg Fell, we could see that from where we were but could not make them out. I suggested we meet them in pub I had been to with Shaun and Ian after our Scafell Pike walk and she agreed.
We kept heading down towards Millbeck, the grass slope here was the worst part of the enter walk, steep and very slippery. My knee was really hurting on this part, and I wanted to get down on the road. Once on the road we double checked the map to make sure we were on the right and quickest path to Keswick.
The walking on the paths and road was easier going and we made good progress into Keswick. We found the pub and the met up with the rest of the family for a well earned pint.
| Operation Details |
| Park: https://pota.app/#/park/GB-0021 Grid square: IO93lt WAB square: SE63 |
| Working Conditions |
| Icom IC-705 Icom AH-705 Sotabeams tactical mini Sotabeams EFLW Ham2K Polo |
| Operation Totals |
| # QSOs # DXCC Entities # P2P # Band and# modes 40m – 10 SSB 20m – 5 FT8, 5 SSB |
