I invited a total of five different people to join me on my "Ponderosa Pair" walk on Saturday 30th January 2016. All five turned me down, so I went on my own!  After an early start, I arrived on Horseshoe Pass still under darkness at 6.58am. The cafe was closed and the car park gates locked, so I parked on the rough ground opposite. With day about to break, I didn't bother putting my headtorch on and got cracking with the initial slog up Moel Faen - always a tedious start to what always then becomes one of the best SOTA days in the UK.

The steep descent from Moel Faen needed care on the frozen ground, but thereafter, it was an easy and pleasant walk up to the summit of Moel y Gamelin GW/NW-042. There was a covering of snow in amongst the heather cloaked hill, illuminated both by the sun in the East, and the moon in the west. The tail end of Storm Gertrude was felt in some icy westerly winds, from which I sheltered by setting up on the lee side of the summit mound.

There appeared not to be any conditions on 10m, so it was a case of working people on 2m and seeing who could be persuaded to do a cheeky QSY. Matt G8XYJ tried valiantly to make a 6m SSB-CW mixed mode QSO with me, and the contact was all but complete. Matt could not get his report though. The nearest he got was when he came back with "I think it's either 58 or 59" - but that was as good as it got, so no completed contact, sadly. BTW Matt - it was indeed 59 I was sending you.

G4APO came up on 28.017MHz CW, and then, to my surprise, OH9XX, so I bagged the all-important Challenge multiplier. In addition to the two 10m CW QSOs, I also made four 2m FM contacts, and one 6m SSB QSO.  It was then time to pack up and walk back to the Ponderosa for some grub.

Checking in at this cafe at 10.20am was a new experience for me, and meant that I wouldn't (for once) be having the traybake steak and kidney pie with chips, 2 veg and gravy! The lunch items are only served from 11.30am you see.

I was not a bit disappointed with an excellent full cooked breakfast and pot of tea. It was excellence on a plate yet again from the legendary Ponderosa, and all the staff there are very nice people too. I was now ready for the walk up Cyrn-y-Brain GW/NW-043 behind the cafe.