Hail Storm Hill itself has no PROW across its summit, a muddy plateau ranging between 475m ad 477m ASL, and no trig point.  There is however, a convenient trig point at Top of Leach.  This is easily accessible from the Pennine Bridleway and stands at 474m ASL with the coll between it and Hail Storm Hill only around 10m lower than the summit.  Therefore, an operation from Top of Leach would qualify as a SOTA activation of Hail Storm Hill, and this is indeed what we did.  (Many thanks to Chris G3XWB for this invaluable tip).

We activated this summit on 20th February 2003.  After driving through Rawtenstall and out towards Bacup, we parked just south of Stacksteads, outside the car breakers yard at SD 846 213.  Then it was a simple case of keep following the road (Rooley Moor Road / Pennine Bridleway, only suitable for Land Rover or similar) right up to the top.  When the top is reached, and the track starts to descend back down towards Rochdale, there is some old farm machinery at the side of the track.  They aren't visible at this point, but climbing up the grass bank on the right (west) of the track will reveal some piles of stones and a trig point - Top of Leach.  From here, we activated Hail Storm Hill (from a different hill about a mile and a half from Hail Storm Hill hi!).

Thanks to the following stations, all worked on 2m FM with 2.5 watts: