This is normally the terminus for the ‘Shropshire Five’ - but I had other ideas (yet still considerably less than what actually ensued) on Sunday 3rd March 2019. 

After the initial bit of fairly level track, there is then the steep slog of the hill to the summit.  The footprint steps were not very horizontal, but were rather greasy with mud, so I made a mental note to avoid them on the descent.  I think my fitness must have been quite good as I was able to keep going and not keep stopping, looking up and feeling despondent that I wasn’t getting any closer.  I was up on the summit fairly swiftly, but then you could really start to feel the force of Freya!

This hill used to be densely forested on one side, and that would give excellent shelter to activators from the typically south westerly winds.  But that entire side of Corndon Hill has been felled, and now the summit is VERY exposed!  It would be magnificent for a VHF contest - on a very calm day!  Storm Freya now had the potential to be disruptive, to cause problems.  Due to the steepness of Corndon, I’d wanted my Leki poles on this one, so the drybag containing my stuff was placed into the rucksack. When taking off this very light rucksack, I placed it carefully beside the summit cairn, with poles and rocks placed over it so it wouldn’t blow away!

It was now raining heavily, and blowing a gale, with some very powerful gusts that nearly knocked me off my feet several times.  As such, operating was very difficult.  In fact holding a paper logbook, with the anxiety not to allow Freya to rip out pages of as-yet unsubmitted activations (I hadn’t entered any of my 2019 activations in the Database yet!), was very difficult.

Five contacts, summit qualified, one unanswered QRZ? call - time for a sharp exit.  I was now getting rather hungry, so looked out for a local shop en route to the next summit.  I didn’t find one that was open, but when I got to Buttington, just north of Welshpool, there was a big shop there at the filling station.  My late lunch comprised a hot steak bake, a full packet of six Welsh cakes (I’d only intended eating one of these and taking the rest home for the lads, but, you know…), an orange and carrot flavour Juiceburst drink and a can of Red Bull. Fine dining at its finest.  Next summit, to my surprise, turned out to be Mynydd-y-briw GW/NW-060.