Jimmy and I drove out from Macclesfield after a rare home breakfast of Corn Flakes, and reached the Penbarrass car park by about 8.50am on Sunday 19th July 2009 - my 39th birthday.  Despite heavy rain throughout virtually all of our drive westwards, it was now dry, albeit very menacingly cloudy, and we set off in full waterproofs, but with fingers crossed!

Moel Famau GW/NW-044 was the target for the 2m Backpackers Contest later today, but you can't do that summit without its loyal partner Foel Fenlli GW/NW-051. So our first move on the morning of Sunday 19th July 2009 was to head left (south) and tackle the iron age hillfort.

   

Deliberations as to which ascent route to select came to an abrupt halt when the gate was padlocked. "That section of the path is probably closed" I suggested to Jimmy. The choice had been made for us, and we continued on the Offa's Dyke Path before cutting left along the ramparts towards the summit.

Some orange cones marked the top of the closed section of path, and the wooden stairs there were so badly damaged as to be almost totally absent. I suspected that other sections needed attention too, as I know from the past just how badly eroded and loose some of the steeper segments can become.

   

Onto the summit, it was an unashamed 2m handheld rubber-duck hit-and-run style activation. Contacts weren't so easy to come by, possibly ironically due to our low-effort operating conditions. Courtesy of a couple of multi-callsign stations (Mike GW0DSP / GW1LFX and Mac M0TXR / 2E0VBQ / M3VPM) we each got to our qualifying quota of four, but we pressed on until we each had at least four unique stations in the log as well.

With 12 QSOs between us, and no-one else calling, we called time on NW-051 and descended the same way we had ascended, not that there was any choice! Back down at the car park, I decided to jettison my walking poles. I decided that I would have a better rhythm on the very gradual Moel Famau path without them, and put them back in the car.  Many thanks to the following callers: