After my activation of Moel Famau GW/NW-044 on Monday 25th February 2013, it was only just past 12 noon, so I decided to head up to the next summit along the Clwydian Range, Penycloddiau.  I was unsure exactly which of the country lanes on the road atlas would lead me to the small car park, so I guessed - and guessed right!  Arguably naughtily, I was not carrying any detailed OS mapping with me on this day!  After throwing on my rucksack, I forked right out of the car park and up the Offa's Dyke Path.  As usual, I did not enjoy the plunging steep drop in the terrain to my immediate left!

After the wooded section, I noticed a safe and straightforward connecting path between the Offa's Dyke Path that I was on, and the wider track lower down.  I hadn't noticed this before.  I do recollect mistakenly following the lower track on my first visit here with Jimmy and Liam back in 2003, and finding a rather steep scramble back up to the ODP, but had never seen this before.  I made a mental note of it for my descent.

At the summit, it appeared that the stone cairn had been grassed over and tidied up, perhaps to give it more presence as the burial mound it purports to be.  I set up the 40m dipole a short distance south of the summit to afford a little shelter from the wind while sitting down.  I finished the rest of my mulligatawny soup from my flask and set about calling CQ SOTA on 7.031MHz CW.

In 22 minutes of operating, I made 35 contacts on 40m CW, which was very satisfying.  After taking the HF aerial down, I checked on 2m FM on my VX7R, and found Adrian G4AZS/P on The Wrekin G/WB-010.  He was worked for a credit on the new SOTA Summit-to-Summit award, shortly followed by a call from Russ M6RGF in Crewe, taking the activation QSO count to 37.

For the descent, I remembered to turn right at the connecting path, and dropped down to the wide forest track, which gave me a relaxing and vertigo-free amble back to the car park.  It was still well before 3pm, and so my mind now turned to the unanticipated possibility of a 4th SOTA activation in the day.  Off to Mynydd y Cwm GW/NW-076 it was then!