This summit was jointly activated by myself and Richard G3CWI, accompanied by Jimmy on Thursday 23rd December 2004.   

From Rhialgwm GW/NW-046, we set-off for our next summit on the other side of Bala. Richard instructed Jane to take us the scenic route via Lake Vyrnwy and the pass that skirts around NW-031. This proved to be slower progress with the recently awakened Jane still groggy from her slumber and often unable to make sense of her surroundings or even understand where she was. Still, with Richard's help and Penelope's monotonous chuntering we made some sort of progress, and as we got closer, Jane became more accurate and navigated us successfully to the exact start point for Mynydd Nodol NW-048. From Bala, we utilised the A4212 before bearing left for the village of Llidiardau.  We left the triumphant Jane and sulking Penelope at SH 872 382.

We followed the PROW around Ty-draw farm and onwards until we were on the ascending moor with a maze of vague tracks looping around. Not knowing which one to follow, we went directly upwards through knee-deep heather (which Jimmy let me know in no uncertain terms that he did not appreciate), before the reappearance of the vague tracks let us gently up to the summit.  Yet again, Richard was away ahead in the distance. In fact he was so far ahead that he had qualified the summit a good half-an-hour before Jimmy and I arrived! Still, every cloud and all that, and I took the opportunity to grab an opportunistic couple of chaser points while I was still well outside the activation area.

The summit was in unpleasant conditions with extremely strong cold wind, fine drizzle and darkening gloomy skies. The chances of the SOTA Beam on any kind of mast, even the WASP, remaining intact were remote. But so were my chances of qualifying the summit without it, so Richard provided a human mast while I frantically scoured the band for contacts. With nothing whatsoever coming back to my CQ calls, and conditions worsening, Richard began a campaign of persuading me to accept a failure, as he himself had so nobly done earlier. I called again, but nothing. Richard repeated his advice, which I couldn't stomach, but could neither ignore, as he was right. 

My options were running out.  I looked around for existing QSOs to hijack, and found the friendly voice of Annick M0HDE who was more than happy to oblige, along with the station she was in QSO with. Two down, two to go, and back to the calling channel.  Nothing. Not a carrot. Richard wanted to go, having been sat on this hostile summit for well over one hour. It was last throw of the dice time - my local repeater GB3MN on 145.650 MHz. As expected, the repeater was busy, so I broke in and asked if stations could hear me on the input. Thankfully, two stations followed me down to S20 and qualified the summit for me. A tough one, but the taste of victory was sweet! Activation number 157 and unique summit number 100, not to mention a big fat juicy 10 points for the day as a whole.

Once we were packed up and walking, the cold and wind seemed to evaporate, and we had an enjoyable walk back down to the car. The summit had not proved to be a environment conducive to enjoying the riches of hot Royal Game soup, so instead this was devoured in the car as a warm-up to the drive home. Having got all the tracks and minor roads out of the way getting to Rhialgwm and between summits, the route home was A roads and motorway all the way, and we had a good run, punctuated by a pint of Kentish Spitfire in The Liver Inn, somewhere in North Wales.

As we approached the border on the A55, and with Penelope and Jane still locked in tiresome squabbling, Jimmy had had enough. "I'm much better at navigating than Jane" he announced confidently, instructed Richard to tell Jane she was no longer required, and took over the navigating all the way back to Macclesfield.

Thanks to the following stations, all worked on 2m FM using 5 watts: