This summit was activated by myself, late afternoon on Friday 4th February 2005.   

Friday saw a quick drive down the A1018 from my hotel, for the meeting at Southmoor Community School, Sunderland, and following my "release" at 2.15pm, it was straight down the A19 towards Teesside. I stopped at one of the services to perform my Superman act, entering a cubicle in a business suit, and emerging from it in my walking clothes. I continued down the refreshingly unbusy A19 until turning left onto the A172, the hills of the North Yorkshire Moors now dominating the horizon. It had been dry all day, but darkening rain clouds were moving in from the west, just as the forecasts had promised. There was still a chance I actually wouldn't get wet though, so I kept my fingers crossed.

I drove up the A172 until the sign to trun right for Carlton. Through the village, it was left again for Chop Gate, and the climb up to the Lords Stone Cafe and car park. I checked in at the cafe to see what time it closed. 5pm was the answer, so no hope of getting up and down the hill in time. Furthermore, they advised me that the car park would be locked at 5pm also, so I took my car back out and put it up on the road (plenty of space).  I bought a couple of chocolate bars for supplies, and set off along the Cleveland Way. This was a very pleasant walk along a wide well-defined track, and then more steeply upwards on a flagged pavement. I reached the topograph and admired the excellent views, but continued as this point is around 30m lower than the summit. The true summit was now visible, a large cairn around quarter of a mile away in a sea of thick heather. There is no path across to the summit indicated on the map, but I followed the rule that there probably would be one starting from the highest point of the marked path. Sure enough, as I reached the highest point of this part of the Cleveland Way, along a very nice escarpment, a well-trodden track veered off through the heather to the summit.

By the side of the large cairn on Cringle Moor - Drake Howe G/TW-002, was a large shelter hollowed out of the earth. I set up the SOTA Beam and WASP on my walking pole atop one of the banks of the shelter. I beamed north with vertical polarisation and quickly qualified the summit including contacts with Don G0NES/M in the area, and SB association manager Jim G0CQK who it turns out lives just a few yards from, and on the same road as my student digs in Newcastle upon Tyne. I then flipped the beam over to horizontal and redirected to try to work the chasers listening from the deep south (Walsall and Welshpool).

           

Valid contacts were made with GW4BVE and G4JZF which I guess is not bad for 5 watts from TW-002. Thanks go to Don and Jim for monitoring in the area as they promised, and particularly to Don for being on-hand to help me achieve the DX QSOs by QRXing my requests for long calls while I optimised my beam headings. There were several times where I was stood on the earth back, about 8 feet above the operating position resetting the SOTA Beam in strong cold wind and failing light and I could hear "Any copy Tom? Tom, any copy?". You'll have to give me a bit longer lads - I'm not as fast as the other activators! There was also a very funny one where Don was calling me and I wasn't answering. "Is there a problem Tom?" he said. I replied "Yes, not having three hands!" having just managed to put down my camera and logbook, and pick up the microphone and pen! Photographs were a priority even before the radio on this summit, since it was a new one for me (unique summit no. 101), and I needed to take the snaps before the light began to fail sharply. Shortly before 5.15pm, I packed the station away, and set off in the day's last few minutes of light. By the time I had resumed on the Cleveland Way path, I couldn't see exactly where I was putting my feet, so on went the headtorch, which had been placed over my fleecy hat in readiness as I packed up on the summit.

The descent was very pleasant with lovely views of the lights across Teesside and the North East. I'm sure Richard G3CWI described a similar, if not identical scene in an activation report some months ago.  Happily, the likely looking rain never happened.  I made good time on the drive back to Macclesfield on the A19, A1, M1, M62, M60, A34 and A537, even allowing myself the luxury of phoning my mother (booked babysitter) to tell her I was back, and she needn't come round after all (Marianne was due at work at 10pm).

Many thanks to Richard G3CWI for recommending the summit and route for the second activation.  Thanks to the following stations worked, the first four on 2m FM with 2.5 watts, the remaining three on 2m SSB with 5 watts: