This summit was activated on Saturday 6th September 2003 by myself accompanied by Jimmy & Liam.  This marked a first 'six-pointer' for the boys, and indeed was Liam's highest summit to date.  Having taken the decision not to attempt to get a second summit in later in the day (wisely as it turned out), we opted for the shorter route from Ingleton, although this does require around 50m extra of ascent compared to the popular path from Horton-in-Ribblesdale.  We parked in ample space at the roadside by the start of the path in Ingleton, and followed the good path along the 2.5 miles to the summit.  For about half of the way, this was an easy gently climbing land rover track, until we reached the farm.  From then on, it was a good stone typical mountain path, and the gradient became gradually steeper until finally there were three sharper climbs up stone stairways (all "false summits"!).  Between a couple of these, I heard fellow SOTA activators on S20 on my little 230mW Standard C108 handheld that I use for monitoring during ascents and descents. 

The 230mW proved to be insufficient, so I temporarily roused the FT817 from the rucksack and utilised it to work Keith G0OXV on Ward's Stone SP-003 and Shirley M0YLS/P on St Sunday's Crag LD-010.  The summit plateau was large featuring several cairns, including a very large one at the centre, the trig point, and a shelter designed to accomodate four groups of walkers.  This shelter was used to it's full capacity once Jimmy, Liam and I had set up the SOTA Beam and took our seats for the activation!  The activation itself was a very easy job, with a pile-up of four stations responding to the initial CQ call.  These were all worked down on 145.475 MHz, after which there were no more takers on this frequency or back on S20.  Rob G4RQJ broke back in after his contact to inform Keith and myself that there appeared to be a thunderstorm heading in the direction of out two close-by summits, and so I was keen to pack up quickly after the confirmation that there were no more chasers waiting for me on FM, rather than staying and playing on 2m SSB, so my apologies if the Birmingham SSB clan were monitoring 144.300 MHz! 

As we headed back down, at precisely the same spot I had worked Keith and Shirley in a chaser capacity, I heard Ron G4FBC on Loughrigg Fell LD-047, and again, the FT817 was needed out of the backpack.  As we reached the final mile or so of our descent, the sky cleared and the west-heading sun shone brightly, bringing about a peeling-off of the waterproofs and fleeces, and some pleasant shirt-sleeve walking to round off the day.   Weather was generally kind to us today; we started in heavy rain in the morning, but this soon cleared to light rain as soon as we gained a little height early in the walk.  For the most part of the day, it was either dry, or very lightly raining, but certainly not the more unpleasant condition reported by Keith who was not very far away at all.  The walking took a while, as it always does when "Steady Eddie" Liam is with us, and so it was a leisurely 2.5 hours each way, although that did included stops for snacks, drinks and the aforementioned summit chasing!

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