The third most activated summit in the whole of SOTA (once known as 'Lowick High Common' - and I had never done it! But here was the chance, and the plan was to allocate plenty of time for this one, allowing a variety of bands to be used, and still getting us on the road home at a reasonable hour.

   

The JimNav took me away from High Close YH on the morning of Sunday 19th April 2009, and south through Coniston. Every so often, Jimmy would point out the wind turbines on the horizon, identifying them as Kirkby Moor. Our route was the A593, A5084 and A5092 before heading south on minor roads to Rake, SD268818, from where we drove along the Kirkby Slate Road.

   

Close to the end of this road was a convenient spot to pull my car onto at the side. Otherwise, finding somewhere to park would have been difficult. To this end, it proved useful to have had the local knowledge from Jordan M3TMX a couple of days earlier.

   

Jimmy, Liam and I walked along the easy access roads out onto the fell and into the windfarm. At a junction of roads we turned right to climb the hill, and then left at the top to get to the large summit cairn. This time there was more setting up to do, for on VHF we were unleashing the SB270, while on HF there was to be 80m and 6m aerials to supplement the favoured 20m.

       

Jimmy switched between 2m FM and 2m SSB, making a total of 22 QSOs. I operated entirely on CW, with sessions on 80m (6 QSOs, including S2S with Rick M0RCP/P on Grisedale Pike G/LD-015), 20m (11, including S2S with Zoli HA3HK/P on Badacsony HA/KD-019), 6m (1), 2m (1) and 70cm (1).

   

The weather was absolutely gorgeous again, but with not a breath of wind, there were some clouds around - of midges! These needed to be skilfully avoided when serving up the Sri Lankan spicy lentil and coconut soup.

Shortly after getting back on the road, we heard Chris 2E0FSR/P on Fountains Fell G/NP-017 and John GW4BVE/P on Cadair Berwyn GW/NW-012. It was good to hear John back on the hills again, and he certainly sounded like he was enjoying it!

We were back in Macc by late afternoon, highly satisfied with a brilliant three days away in the English Lake District. Can there be anyone else who is as consistently lucky with Lake District weather as us? I just wish I could bottle it and take it to Snowdonia with me, where the opoosite inevitably occurs!  Many thanks to all the following callers for this activation: