Bank Holiday Monday 2nd January 2012. A new year, and points to be had. Jimmy M3EYP edging towards his mountain goat award, and Liam continuing his recently rejuvenated enthusiasm for SOTA days out with the boys.  By 8am, we were tucking into hearty cooked breakfasts at Lymm Truck Stop. By 9.30am we were pulling into the car park at Ponderosa Cafe on the A542 Horseshoe Pass. Here we met Richard G3CWI and Wee Wah who were joining us for the first summit - Moel y Gamelin GW/NW-042.

       

It was cold, around 3 degrees Celcius. This wasn't too bad in itself, but anywhere away from shelter found a strong wind carrying a significant windchill, and disruption to setting up antennas! Most of the undulating path to Moel y Gamelin's summit was covered in light snow.  Jimmy MW3EYP/P struggled to set up the SOTA Beam, and when up, results were not great. Sure, it doesn't help when one of the crocodile clips keeps disconnecting, but problems were greater, and the coax was dispatched for expert examination. He ended up with better results just using the standard helical antenna on his HT.

Richard GW3CWI/P was continuing his PP3 challenge campaign, and further added to his cumulative QSO total. Wee Wah sat alongside him, but inside a purple bothy bag. The meagre shelter afforded by the bump in the ground on which the summit lies was sufficient for the rest of us to remain outside our bothy shelters.

   

Liam had racked up another ten Playcoins on his ascent, so sat happily playing on his Nintendo 3DS. I set up the 10m groundplane vertical (MM10) and made a few contacts on CW. I tried calling on a self-spotted SSB QRG, but drew zero response. As such, I didn't bother with 10m FM. VK6HD was heard with big signals calling CQ on 28.012MHz CW, but it was soon obvious that I wasn't going to break his increasing pile-up!

Richard, Wee Wah and Liam had all set off back to the Ponderosa Cafe some time ago, so Jimmy and I finished out packing up and walked together down to our lunch rendezvous. The cafe was busy as usual, and no wonder. The steak & kidney pie with chips, peas, carrots and gravy was a tasty gargantuan feast as ever, and enjoyed by three of us at the table. Mr & Mrs G3CWI set off back to Macclesfield, while the EYP clan pressed on for the afternoon walk up Cyrn-y-Brain GW/NW-043.