Hail Storm Hill, G/SP-009 - 477m ASL - SD 835 193 - OS Explorer OL21 - 1 SOTA point           

Thursday 4th June 2020 - Hail Storm Hill G/SP-009, Freeholds Top G/SP-011, The Cloud G/SP-015 & Gun G/SP-013

I had my alarm set for 5am - but I woke up around 3.30am BST - so decided to get up then and be out even earlier!  Thankfully, I remembered to disable the alarm clock before leaving the bedroom; Marianne would not have appreciated a 5am alarm that she had to get out of bed to turn off!

It was a calm and peaceful drive up the A34, M60 and M66 into the Rossendale Valley.  Of the three routes I have used to climb this hill, I have settled upon the tracks out of Cowpe as the favourite.  After parking in the village, I climbed up through the scrapyard and took the track on the left to head up to join the Rooley Moor Road (track).  I then followed this up to Top of Leach - in the activation zone, just 3m lower than the true summit - but much easier to reach!

Achieving a QSO on one of the Challenge bands was not so simple though.  The bands had not woken up as such.  I bided my time with some local QSOs on 2m FM before eventually getting a response on 10m FT8.  Rather than waste more time, I accepted that I had got my Challenge multiplier, and descended, to then drive to Freeholds Top G/SP-011.