It didn't seem two minutes since the Lake District SOTA weekend when the notice about the Yorkshire Dales version appeared on the reflector.  I strongly doubted my ability to be granted a "pass-out" for such an indulgence once again, but I was pleasantly surprised.  After enduring the goading from my teammates (I am the skipper of the work football team, and therefore supposed to be the last one who ever says "Sorry lads, can't make it this week), I got away from work at 3.15pm on Friday 23rd April, straight back to Macclesfield to collect Jimmy and all the gear. After a terrible decision to go through gridlocked Alderley Edge rather than Prestbury, it was then plain sailing up the A34, M60, M66, A56, M65, A682 and whatever that road is that goes to Horton-in-Ribblesdale. Not that we got that far of course; the Stainforth Youth Hostel lies a few miles to the south.  Here we met Myke G6DDQ and Steve G1INK, settled into our room and went down for dinner. The food throughout the weekend was excellent in my opinion, although like a number of others, I think I will be going "self-catering" for breakfasts and packed lunches in future, 9.15am being a bit late to be embarking on a day's SOTA walking. Later, Riley G7GOD (or this weekend M/KB8PPG/P) arrived and showed us his area SOTA map. Following tea, we walked down to the local pub in Stainforth for a few beers (me and Steve), soft drinks (Riley and Myke) and water (Jimmy). We were joined in the pub by Rod M3HLD and Colin M0CGH.  That night, Jimmy started what was to become a feature of the weekend in our 7-bedded room - snoring. My embarrasment at the snorting of my 11-year old son at the start of the night was tempered by the more impressive efforts of Myke the following dawn, and Keith G0OXV on the Saturday night. Add to that the experiences shared with us by Riley's room-mates and no doubt my own input to the chorus (my wife assures me that I will have significantly contributed), and one is left relieved that a full day's walking tends to eliminate any possible insomnia!

On the Saturday, we drove into Horton-in-Ribblesdale and "signed-in" at the Pen-y-ghent Cafe. Jimmy and myself were going to attempt the Three Peaks, with a fallback option of completing it with Whernside on the Sunday should we not make it. That is indeed what happened, the main problem being all the other summits that were on. We were stopping and starting to make chaser contacts continually on the walks, and staying on summits longer than ideal in order to work all the summit-to-summit contacts.  Still, that's what we were here to do, and it seemed we had hardly started our trek up to Pen-y-ghent G/NP-010 on the Pennine Way from Horton when Alan M1EYO/P came up on Whernside G/NP-004. Later on this walk were Shirley M0YLS/P on Ingleborough G/NP-005 and Clive M1YAM/P on Wild Boar Fell G/NP-007. After setting up the SOTA Beam and FT-817 atop Pen-y-ghent, summit-to-summit contacts came quickly with Alan again who was waiting for NP-010, plus Keith G0OXV/P on Fountains Fell G/NP-017 and Steve G1INK/P on Great Shunner Fell G/NP-006. The summit was busy with lots of people out enjoying the warm sunshine, and many approaching me to enquire about my activity. All were very interested and thought it sounded great fun.

Then a ranger appeared. "How long is that thing going to be up?" he enquired politely. "About 25-30 minutes" replied I. "Are you part of an organisation?" he continued. "Yes" I responded, pointing him in the direction of the large SOTA logo on my T-shirt. And off he went, until he reappeared just 5 minutes later. "Don't be too much longer with that thing" he said. "It is a bit of an eyesore and all these people are complaining" he continued, pointing to the very same people who I had chatted to myself a few minutes earlier. He then disappeared off towards the steep end of Pen-y-ghent, and I carried on with the activation.  More SOTA-to-SOTA came with Pete MW0COP/P on Moel y Gamelin GW/NW-042, Peter M1BZJ/P on Winter Hill G/SP-010, Dave MW0DFA/P on Carnedd y Filiast GW/NW-032 and Wyn MW0CIH/P on Carnedd Llewelyn GW/NW-002. Thanks were also due to GW4ZWO, G4RQJ, G4BVE/P, G4BLH, G0NES/M (Don waiting for Pete MW0COP on Horseshoe Pass), M0IGG, M0XLT, M0SJJ and G0LWU.

Already resigned to the fact that there would be insufficient time remaining to finish the 3 Peaks in the one day, we set off back down the Pennine Way to Horton, working Chris G3XWB/P on Ingleborough G/NP-005 (for zero chaser points this time!), Alan M1EYO/P on his second summit Great Coum G/NP-011 and Keith G0OXV/P on Pen-y-ghent G/NP-010. Two other summits were heard, and I decided to keep it that way. I had already got chaser points for those summits that day, and they weren't exactly struggling for contacts(!), so into the SWL logbook went Riley M/KB8PPG/P on Ingleborough G/NP-005 (again) and Shirley M0YLS/P on Whernside G/NP-004.

Thanks to the following stations, all worked on 2m FM with 230 milliwatts down to MW0COP/P, 1 watt thereafter: