This summit was activated on Friday 16th July 2004, by myself, accompanied by Jimmy and Liam.   

Last year's SOTA BBQ get-together in Snowdonia was great, but the evening "social" segment was disrupted somewhat by the incessant swarms of enthusiastic midges.  Who needs a midge-burner when an open mouth adjacent to a hot dog attracts just as many if not more?

But cometh the hour, cometh the man, and in our Welsh Association Manager, Roger MW0IDX, we had a visionary leader who found a solution to the problem that was also reflected the continued rapid growth of SOTA since it's relative infancy twelve months previous.   In an inspired and brilliant decision, Sir Roger identified the beautiful Lleyn peninsular - featuring a clutch of never or rarely activated Marilyns, close to Snowdonia for those who suffer from ogitrev (inverse vertigo) if they stay too low, and a midge-free zone.  To top it all, a group boat trip to the unspoilt and hardly populated Barsey Island to tackle its Marilyn was on offer, a fine way to celebrate the success of the Programme thus far. 

The weekend began for me as I left work for my summer break on the Friday afternoon.  Driving back to Macclesfield to collect Jimmy & Liam, I worked Steve GW1INK/P on Snowdon GW/NW-001, in fact on his second summit of the day after Y Lliwedd GW/NW-008.  After collecting the boys and heading out west towards the M6 and M56, I worked Keith GW0OXV/P, on his second summit Tal y Fan GW/NW-040, after earlier claiming Penycloddiau GW/NW-054.  Motoring along the A55 in North Wales, Steve was heard once again, this time having descended the ridge from Snowdon and now activating Yr Aran GW/NW-019.  All the chasing action completed for the day, we continued down onto the Lleyn, weaving around Yr Eifl GW/NW-075 and remembering fondly our recent activation of it, and determined to recommend it to fellow BBQees.

After driving through Pwllheli, and enjoying Liam's hilarious attempts to say it with the Welsh pronunciation (and you should hear his version of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch - it is side-splitting), we drove into the village of Llanbedrog, from where, as promised, the route to the camp site was signed by following our unique red and green motif on the lamp posts and telegraph poles.

After pitching the tent, there still seemed to be more than enough light remaining, so Jimmy, Liam and myself set off for the adjacent summit of Carneddol GW/NW-068.  This is on private farmland, but permission had been kindly granted for the weekend by the farmer following my request through the Gwynedd County Council website.  We parked by the gate SH 304 333, a little north of the farmyard, and to the east of the summit.  The hill was not at all steep, and we started from an elevated position on the road in any case, so the walk was easy, but even so, the best and most graded ascent was by curving around the right hand side of the crest of the hill.

  

About halfway up, we saw another car pull up, and out of it got Rick GW0VMW/P and Roger MW0IDX/P, together with Rick's wife and daughter.  They soon caught us up at the summit, and so I suggested that decency should prevail, and considering we were only there courtesy of my detective work and negotiations to gain access, that they should respectfully allow me to be the first ever to activate NW-068.  Decency did not prevail, and Roger racked up four speedy contacts on his handheld while I was still setting up the SOTA Beam.  Rick did similar, so I had to settle for third place.  As it turned out, the only replies were from the gang still down at the Tynrhos campsite - Steve GW1INK/P, Rob GW4RQJ/P, Keith GW0OXV/P and Jenny MW0BET/M - so I could have claimed it first on the handy after all.  However, a little obsession of mine in 'bagging' a summit is to return with a photograph of the SOTA Beam on the summit for my website - an obsession that cost me a
place in history!  Throughout my time on the summit, I did not see much of Jimmy and Liam, (in fact I hardly saw Jimmy for the entire weekend) and when I looked across, I discovered that they had managed to corner Rick's wife and daughter, a captive audience for them to relate their life stories.

Returning to the campsite, we collected Steve, who in common with me and the lads had not eaten, and wished to do so.  We drove into Pwllheli initially looking for a chippy, but when we stumbled across an Indian restaurant, we agreed to look no further.   Jimmy and Liam were in their sleeping bags for an early night by 0015 BST, while I sat doing a spot of HF broadcast DXing on the tropical bands for a while.

Thanks to all the following stations worked on this activation, all worked on 2m FM with 500  mW: