Thursday 1st September 2005 would see us tackle two brand new summits for us.  I had used MX1SWL/P, the club callsign of the International Short Wave League (ISWL) for the last two days in August, and for the first two days in September, I had booked GX4MWS/P, the club callsign of the Macclesfield Wireless Society.

Our day started early with the customary drive into Keswick to collect the day's provisions from the Co-op, following which we headed west and took the A66 then B-road up to the Whinlatter Forest.  We parked on the left, in the car park opposite the visitor centre car park.  Our route took as along the level forest rides, but we made a wrong turning very early.  When what I could see in front of me began to heavily contradict my map, we retraced our steps and had another look.  This time we took the correct track and shortly after into the field on the left to begin the sharp climb up to Grisedale Pike G/LD-015.  This was a steep unforgiving ascent up a grassy slope with a few "footprint steps" every so often to allow the relief of putting a foot down level!

After a few false summits on this misty morning, we reached the cold, rocky, narrow and extremely windy summit of Grisedale Pike.  Activating in these conditions would have been difficult and potentially dangerous, so we continued to the shelter, a few metres lower than the summit to its south.  The shelter didn't actually provide much shelter from the strong westerly wind, and it was a struggle getting the SOTA Beam up.  When this was achieved, the next challenge was to get four contacts on 2m in spite of the higher mountains to the south and east.  Thank goodness therefore, for stations replying from Cleator Moor and Keswick!  And of course Dave M0DFA/P on Helvellyn G/LD-003.  I managed to exchange reports with Mick 2E0HJD and Nigel 2E0NHM to qualify the hill with one contact to spare, and we quickly packed up and moved onto Grasmoor G/LD-009.  

Thanks to the following stations, all worked on 2m FM (using callsign GX4MWS/P - Macclesfield Wireless Society club callsign) with 2.5 watts: