Saturday 16th April 2005 - Like the earlier Great Shunner Fell G/NP-006, this was a "follow-the-fence" navigation, quite reassuring with two kids in poor visibility, especially seeing as my compass had disintegrated on Great Shunner Fell earlier that morning. After negotiating the bog at the start of the walk, it was then a steady plod up steep and not so steep grassy banks. The hill rounded off at the top, we climbed over the funny stile to the summit. Jimmy and Liam occupied the "Lovely" Seat, which was more like a garden water feature with trickles of cold water from the ice all over it. Liam found a cap from the boom of a SOTA Beam behind a stone in the Lovely Seat, and I thought I had acquired a useful spare. Not so, Jimmy immediately told me that it belonged to Myke G6DDQ, and that he had been ordered by our weekend coordinator to find and return the one he lost up there.

The beam components were now not as iced up, and so it was difficult to persuade them to dangle vertically rather than dropping to the floor, but somehow I managed it, and the summit was qualified easily. The remaining half-litre of Lobster soup was guzzled and we made good time on our descent. So good in fact that we were able to drive into Hawes to pick up a bottle of Radox shower gel, return to the hostel, load boots and other damp items into the drying room and take a hot shower before dinner. We had never been so organised or punctual on one of these events previously - maybe taking Liam on his debut YH weekender was the answer!

The Youth Hostel did us proud once again, with a fine evening meal, after Liam chose to go straight to bed. Learning from the previous night, everyone had stocked up on beers and wine and we remained in the hostel lounge. This was most pleasant, with the whole group of us together, sitting around a real fire listening to James M0ZZO who emerged as the chief storyteller! Steve G1INK was his usual unsociable self and made his excuses to go and write his four thousand contacts for the day into his logbook, in the dormitory upstairs. I decided I would put a stop to that, and suggested to Jimmy that he went to bed. As I predicted, Liam was still awake which guaranteed a brotherly argument about whether the lights remained on or off. Bang on cue, Steve came downstairs reporting that World War III was continuing above. The lads soon settled, and the social element continued in the lounge. One by one, participants disappeared to get their rejuvenating sleep ahead of Sunday's walks, until only INK and EYP remained, putting the world to rights until 2.00am.

Thanks to the following stations, all worked on 2m FM with 0.5 watts, excpet LKB and VKR where 2.5 watts was used: