Time was marching on on Saturday 20th October 2012, and we were running short of daylight hours - not that this issue seemed to remotely concern the Norwegians!  From Freeholds Top G/SP-011, we drove back through Bacup with Halvard and Aage following behind. Jimmy directed me through the village of Turn, but instead of parking in the village like last time, we drove up the road further uphill, and parked on the verge opposite Fecit Farm. All the hang gliders were parked on this verge, so we figured that it was in order.

       

We crossed the road to enter the PROW at SD818174. Our path soon merged with the Rossendale Way route as it weaved between the hillocks and wind farms thereon. Eventually we came to a sort of gateway marked by two tall stone pillars, and we knew that from here to the summit was plain wet and dirty!

   

It seemed to take longer than I recalled to get from here to the summit. The true summit of Hail Storm Hill G/SP-009 is pretty vague on a featureless boggy plateau, but it is marked by a small cairn, and Jimmy, again, located it, seemingly without difficulty.

Halvard beat Jimmy onto 2m FM and worked a long line of stations, forcing Jimmy to bide his time and wait patiently. In the meantime, Aage activated on 30m CW, and I repeated mt 15m CW of earlier. In my 9 contacts, only two were not into North America. Eventually, Jimmy got onto 2m FM and made 5 QSOs.

   

It was now rapidly getting dark, so we packed up quickly and donned headtorches. Navigating off the plateau and finding the stone pillars was difficult and a little nerve-racking, but I got there by following where Jimmy's light was as he, Aage and Halvard waited for Liam and I.  Once on the track it was plain sailing down to the cars, by which time Aage was well into his third can of lager for the activation! This did not stop us from heading to the nearest pub and enjoying some Jennings bitter before the drive home.

Many thanks to Aage and Halvard for meeting up with us again for another great day in the hills.