Lord's Seat, G/LD-033 - 552m ASL - NY 204 265 - OS Explorer OL4 - 2 SOTA points          

We had been looking a long way down onto this one for most of the day, on Wednesday 29th August 2007.  From our lofty vantage points of Grisedale Pike G/LD-015 and Grasmoor G/LD-009, we were thinking it would be a good choice for a late afternoon wind-down. For the ultimate in decadent laziness, I drove the car the few hundred yards from the car park to the Whinlatter Forest Visitor Centre car park up the road, even paying a pound for the privilege.

The OS 1:25000 showed a maze of forest rides without any clear indication of how to pick through them to get to the summit. Furthermore, we recalled from our last visit that there were good paths on the ground near the summit that were not indicated whatsoever on the OS map. We had ascended, steepy, from Thornthwaite on the side of Lake Bassenthwaite last time.

We were hot and tired, and so a fruity ice cream lolly in the visitor centre cafe went down very well. That staff in there were also happy to refill Jimmy's bladder which had run dry. I enquired at the information desk as to the best route up. The very helpful young lady advised me to follow the Green Trail to junction posts 2, 3 and 53, and then to leave the Green Trail and continue ahead to junction posts 5 and 23, which would take me nearly to the summit.

   

This enthused Jimmy, who assured me he was expert at following tourist forest trails as a result of experience of school hikes in the Delamere Forest!  He led the way, following the Green Trail marker posts steeply uphill through the twilight world of the Whinlatter Forest. Daylight returned at post 53, as a clearing opened out and we left the Green Trail. Now, we could see Lord's Seat summit ahead of us, and followed the good path to the top. "Mum would enjoy this route" remarked Jimmy, as we recalled the family haul up the very steep and muddy ascent of October 2003, and the fact that she had not been at all impressed on that occasion!

It was still nice and sunny by 5.45pm when we were up there, but a biting icy wind was blasting across from the Irish Sea, across which we could clearly see the Dumfries & Galloway coast. The handheld-only option was not considered, and the SOTA Beam was set up as a matter of course. Contacts were not as forthcoming on this one, nor did I expect them to be so, the hill being much lower then the others, and rather screened to the south. We were however surprised not to be called from Scotland. 75% of my contacts in 2003 from this hill were from North of the border. Just when we thought we had missed him, GW0DSP called in at the end of the activation to keep his run going. Mike, by now, was also counting down my remaining points for the Mountain Goat award!

   

We began the descent and the sky began to dim slightly. In my mind flashed the words "Car park barrier locked at dusk", and so we quickened the pace to avoid the unwelcome kind of "lock-in". After a shower and change at the hostel, we went to the Yew Tree restaurant at the bottom of the hill from Honister, in Seatoller. This was an unusual place, serving a strange menu of South African dishes. It was nice, but quite expensive, and I had to make do with Jennings Cumberland Cream keg bitter. This was nicer than other cold keg bitters, but not as nice as other Jennings cask ales.

Many thanks to the following stations, all worked on 2m FM with 5 watts: