All three of us had done this one last year.  After the short drive from Thorpe Fell Top G/NP-025 on Saturday 14th May 2005, we parked by the start of the track SE of the summit, known to some as the "Craven Heifer side", although this start point is close than that pub.  There was one parking spot free, so we baggsed it and set off along the level farm road.  Two mountain bikers whizzed past us, but had not done their homework.  Jimmy, Liam and myself forked right off the farm track where the bridleway leaves it to climb the low gradient to the summit.  Ten minutes later we saw the mountain bikers riding back down the track to the point they should have turned.  Another ten minutes later, they caught us up, and we were very close to the start of the small steep section by this point.  One made a remark about "The Hare and the Tortoise" as they overtook us for the second time.

The convenient seat was useless, being on the side of the wall that was getting battered by the wind, so we hopped over the stile, reacquainted ourselves with the trig point, and dropped a couple of metres off the steep southern face to shelter.  The difference in apparent temperature when out of the wind was amazing, and this was certainly a "bask in the sun" activation.  Liam accidentally nudged his rucksack, which then rolled right down the steep hill into the field below, but at least it only took him two minutes to climb down, retrieve it, and get back up!

I made 8 contacts on 2m FM, and decided to pack up, seeing as Liam had already departed on his descent.  As I was just about to drop off the small summit plateau, I turned the handheld back on for monitoring and ended up working two more chasers, and four summit-to-summit contacts, with Dick M0EIQ/P on Hail Storm Hill G/SP-009, and Shirley and gang on Tal y Fan GW/NW-040.  This set me further behind Jimmy and Liam, who in fact I didn't see again until the car.  During the descent, I chatted to Clive M1YAM and Kevin M0XLT who were arning me about a serious traffic jam between Skipton and Gargrave.  Happily, the problems didn't extend as far as my passage to the next summit - Rombalds Moor G/NP-028.  

Thanks to the following stations, all worked on 2m FM, the first five on 0.5 watts, the next three on 1 watt and the rest on 4 watts: