This summit was activated on Sunday 9th May 2004 by myself accompanied by Jimmy and Liam.  It was the first of a two-summit day before heading on to Horse Head Moor G/NP-021.  The day was a tale of two photo opportunities, both activations done away from true summits for photogenic reasons!

The Dales weekend certainly whetted my appetite for this part of the world, and left me wanting to activate some of those I had hoped to do but ran out of time to do.  It seemed I was not the only one, as Sunday 9th May saw G1INK, G0MJG, G0OXV and M1EYP all compelled to return to the Yorkshire Dales to pick up from where they left off.   Marianne was on the night-shift and the boys were keen, so alarms were set for 6.00am.  A breakfast of fresh fruit, cereal and the balance of the two tins of chicken, potato and sweetcorn soup that wouldn't fit into the flask and a session loading the car and checking (good job, I nearly forgot the camera), and we were on the road by 7.25am.  We called in at the Tesco petrol station at the big Handforth Dean stores for bottles of water, Mars bars, pepper steak pasties and diesel before continuing up the A34 and onto the M60, M66 and A56.  As we got towards the M65, we stopped at the services (signed from the A56) and rather fancied a cooked breakfast to add to our earlier one.  It was still only 8.30am, and so we indulged in sausage & egg muffins, hash browns and coffee courtesy of Ronald himself. We continued retracing our steps to the Stainforth Youth Hostel via the M65, A682 and the road signed for Horton-in-Ribblesdale out of Settle.  Just after the YH, we took the right signed for Stainforth and Halton Gill and passed the YH weekend pub "The Craven Heifer".  We drove up the narrow lane out into the countryside approaching the steep end of Pen-y-ghent to the left. 

After passing the sign for the Pennine Way here we then started looking out for where it was signed to the right, and at this point we pulled over to start the walk. The Pennine Way here leads gently up a field by a wall with a few boggy bits but nothing too bad.  We followed the wall through a stile up to where the Pennine Way starts to swing away to the left and steadily climbs to the North East shoulder of Fountains Fell G/NP-017.  Here, it was over a wall and set up by the large cairn.  The true summit was visible  a few hundred yards to the left, but we decided to stay by the cairn which was only a few metres lower than the summit.  Here we met a Pennine Way walker who was thoroughly enjoying his backpacking expedition and was very interested to hear all about SOTA. The first two stations worked were also on summits; Steve G1INK/P on Great Whernside G/NP-008 and John G4YSS operating GX0OOO/P on Scafell Pike G/LD-001 (congratulations on the Mountain Goat John).  I myself was playing at club callsigns too, using MX1SWL/P, one of the two club calls held by the ISWL (International Short Wave League).  I will have the other one - GX4BJC/P - in August.  Then followed some regular chasers including M0COP (congratulations on the Shack Sloth Pete), and then Stuart G0MJG/P and Keith G0OXV/P on Dodd Fell G/NP-016 and Rob G4RQJ/P on Skiddaw G/LD-004. At 1.10pm local, we packed away and set off down to the car.  Liam decided to up the pace and led a quick descent. 

Thanks to the following stations for calling in: