Whatever happened to those Gaulfests, and other wonderful crisp winter outings that SOTA used to enjoy between Christmas and New Year? The weather had been truly awful. Then again, I did get out on Christmas Day and Boxing Day.

 
The next opportunity had to be carefully planned. New Year's Eve, Monday 31st December 2012, saw both G3CWI and myself with pass-outs from our respective XYLs. However, the Met Office rain radar was painting a gloomy picture across the UK.  Call it clutching at straws if you like, but I reckoned that if we didn't start too early, and had things wrapped up before too late, then a window of opportunity existed in a narrow band between two bands of heavy rain, centred on the Clwydians in the middle of the day. Richard was content to trust in this optimistic view and we planned to visit Foel Fenlli GW/NW-051 and Moel Famau GW/NW-044.

       

This was an especially nice day for me as Richard offered to do the driving. When we first arrived at Bwlch Penbarras, it was tipping it down. We needed to delay our start. Me buying a pair of new waterproof overtrousers (my old ones were ripped to shreds) and us both taking a full cooked breakfast in a cafe in Ruthin wasted the necessary time.  This time, as we parked up on Bwlch Penbarras, the rain had all but stopped. We commenced the haul up Foel Fenlli GW/NW-051, with me stopping for rest breaks and gasping for air and betraying my lack of exercise and serial over-indulgence over Christmas.

As we set up our respective stations on summit, the rain returned with intent, and we both quickly pulled our bothy bags over ourselves and our gear. I found that 12m CW was open, but seemingly only to a small specific region. For the only two QSOs I made were to EA9 and ZB2! I resorted to 2m FM from the handheld, which brought the two I needed to qualify the summit.

   

Richard GW3CWI/P set off on his descent, reporting around 40 QSOs on 40m CW. I made one final call on 12m CW, and worked Roger MW0IDX. This gave me a new DXCC for 2012 on 12m, so many thanks Roger! The rain stopped, and I took a little extra time on summit enjoying my steak & potato soup, knowing that Richard intended sitting in his car drinking coffee.