Saturday 6th June 2020 - White Hill G/SP-006, Ward's Stone G/SP-003 & Fair Snape Fell G/SP-007

What with my early morning double activation outings of the previous two days, I found myself within three summits of an annual completion of the G/SP SOTA region - before the end of the first half of the calendar year.  The only thing was they happened to be the three toughest summits when all aspects (distance from home, terrain, length and difficulty of walks etc) are taken into consideration.  Indeed, when I mentioned my plan to complete the three of them in a one day outing to Richard G3CWI, he commented "I didn't even realise they were possible in a day"!  I had to mention that I'd done them in a single day back in 2004 with Jimmy (before he was licensed) and our dear friend Shirley MW0YLS (now sadly SK).  Photos from that day can be seen again by clicking on the 2004 links at the foot of this page, and the Ward's Stone 2004 and Fair Snape Fell 2004 pages.

I parked, as usual, at the Cross of Greet layby on the Slaidburn to Bentham road.  The route enters access lands through a kissing gate opposite, then follows the fence gradually upwards across boggy ground, with a few damp ditches to negotiate.  I made it to the summit on a blustery but sunny morning before 8.30am after another very early start from Macclesfield.  I was surprised when an unseen ground-nesting bird launched itself from almost beside my feet.  I dare say the bird was surprised too!  Initially, I investigated a spot close to the "tower" for a sheltered operating position, but there was actually nowhere where I was confident that my SOTA Pole would not suffer damage.  Instead, I dropped into a large depression between the tower and the trig point, and worked my way towards a bank to get some kind of shelter.  The spot it took off from had nine eggs in it, so I hope the bird was able to return there after I'd walked away.

I opted for 6m on this summit, mainly because it was slightly faster to set up!  I did have the 10m-12m antenna in the rucksack just in case 6m didn't provide any contacts.  In fact there was nothing to worry about as six QSOs were made - five on FT8 and one on CW.  White Hill is not one of the most pleasant places in SOTA to linger - so I didn't - I descended and got on my way to Ward's Stone G/SP-003.