Robinson, G/LD-021 - 737m ASL - NY 201 168 - OS Explorer OL4 - 6 SOTA points           

It was the tenth and final summit activation of our four days in the Lakes.  We set off from Dale Head G/LD-020, trying to spot the section of this traverse proves so unnerving for our friend Rob G4RQJ. I presume it must be the first bit, where shortly after leaving Dale Head there is around 20 feet that must be walked to the left of a large rock with a steep rocky drop to the left of the path. It is not what I would call an "edge" though, and with the large rock to hold on to, and the decent flat surface of the path, it did not unduly concern me, and I am poor with heights myself.

Further down, one comes to Littledale Edge. It was so claggy that we couldn't see over the edge, so how steep or what kind of drop exists I do not know. However, a strong fence lies between the path and the edge anyway, so the scariness of Littledale Edge was non-existent. The pull up to Robinson summit from this col is barely 160m, close to the minimum for it to be counted as a Marilyn hill in its own right, so the final ascent was quick and easy.

   

We sheltered in front of a large cairn on one of the rocky banks at the summit. We agreed that we did not think there was a cairn when we were last here four years ago. This time we set up the beam, thinking that Robinson, like Lord's Seat, would be a more challenging summit to get out from. 9 QSOs resulted without difficulty, including GW0DSP who therefore achieved his target of working us on all of our LD summits on the trip. A mid-morning snack of mulligatawny soup and blueberry Nutri-Grain was savoured before we headed back up to Dale Head G/LD-020 on the return leg.

       

In fact the weather was even worse than earlier on Dale Head, so we dropped down the hill a little and huddled in front of a small cairn, with the wind now mainly northerly. A group of women walkers who had passed us on Robinson earlier waved at us, thus revealing a stone shelter on Dale Head we had completely missed before. Still, they were in it, so the cairn had to do for Jimmy and I. As promised, further calls were made on 2m FM in case any chasers still wanted Dale Head, but there were no replies at all. With both Jimmy and I having the requisite contacts from earlier, we did not set up the beam, but relaxed and finished our hot soup, more Nutri-Grains and Kendal Mint Cake. That left us with an hour's straightforward albeit weary descent to Honister Hause to complete an excellent and tiring four days of SOTA activating in the Lake District.

       

We were back at Honister shortly after 2pm, a performance we could have done with in October 2003 when we were struggling to descend from Robinson in darkness after 6pm at night. An optimistic check at the youth hostel brought the warden to the door. An optimistic request that we could go in and have a shower and change, despite checking out earlier that morning was kindly granted, so that enabled us to achieve a much greater degree of comfort for the journey home. I also took this opportunity to purchase some bottles of Jennings Sneck Lifter (5.6%) and strong organic cyder (6.5%) from the hostel shop, to take home.

The A66, M6 and A537 saw us safely home, and to the traditional 'after SOTA' venue of the Weston Balti Raj, with Marianne and Liam.

Thank you to all the stations that worked us on the LD summits. Equal thanks to all the stations that tried to work us but didn't make it. Apologies to any stations that may have missed out as a result of my 'minimum effort' activating strategy. Congratulations (and thanks) to Mike GW0DSP who worked us on all ten of the LD summits we activated.  The 70 points collected over the four days took me to 990 in the activator section, and kind of "on the brink" of the Mountain Goat award.

Thanks to the stations worked from Robinson, all on 2m FM with 5 watts: