Carn Mor & Carn Ealasaid

Carn Mor

In a somewhat reminiscent turn of events as the GM/ES Winter Activity Day, a few folks were planning on going out as Gerald, G4OIG, was planning his visit up here. Unfortunately, Gerald was ill in the week and had to cancel 🤒).

However, we had Fraser, MM0EFI, Simon, GM4JXP, Mike, 2M0WNA, myself, and Alan, MM0VPM, was trying hard in England. We weren’t all quite lined up for the same activation time, for various reasons, but we were likely to all overlap at some point.

I decided to do Carn Mor, and was going to climb it starting from the Lecht Mine car park, which leads to the Lecht Mine or the Lecht well.

I was one of the latest activators, and on my drive over, I stopped near Corgarff castle to chase Fraser on GM/ES-023 - a complete for me. Then continued further up the road to a layby near the ski centre to chase Mike on GM/ES-068.

The route follows the path by the stream towards to mine but before you reach it, you turn off and climb up Càrn Liath. The stream has to be crossed, and it’s not a wee burn, nor a great river, but enough to make you ponder the best way over. I went with a running jump at what seemed like a narrow part and felt that was a close call right at the start!

The track kicks up on gradient pretty quick, and you climb the 300m elevation in about 1.6km. You’re now at virtually the summit height but still with 3 km to go, with some ups and downs on the way.

The aerial maps show plenty of peat hags on the way up to the top of the first hill but I seemed to manage to avoid them. It was, however, not going to be the case the whole way, and once beyond the nice path next to the fence does one face them.

The south side of the hags seemed easier (as I tried on the North on the way back) and once I got past them I wasn’t really paying attention to the map and continued to follow the track up the next hill. Only to realise this was an unnecessary detour. However, in my detour, I’d managed to avoid some more compared to taking the direct route, so I think a middle ground between going up the summit and the straight line route is best (this is what I’ve added to sotamaps.)

That was the last false summit, and now the end was in sight.

As you can see, the weather was absolutely lovely - also just like the last time Gerald didn’t visit. A slight breeze but nothing much. After not too much longer the trig appeared in sight.

I managed a 2m summit to summit with Mike, and Simon but Fraser had left, and so he called me from the peat hags on Brown Cow Hill.I setup on HF and had a go on 40m.

I seemed to be getting rf on the audio on 40m, with the KX2 on the trig point. I moved it onto the ground that that seemed to cure things. Once 40m had dried up, I considered moving to other bands but then I also considered a second summit - given it was such a nice day and I’d driven all this way. So I packed up and headed back - eating my noodles as I walked.

I did try and take a more direct route on the way back but the peat hags said no, and I was better off just following the route I took out.

Carn Ealasaid

After the first summit today, I was back to the car, up the road to the Lecht ski centre for Carn Ealasaid! It is very close, so seems silly not to do it. I did this one last year with my daughter, the weather was also lovely, although once I got on the air the cloud moved in and we had to make a quick exit. I was taking the same route today.

In some ways, quite a similar route, steep at first and then undulating to the summit. Oh and peat hags ! 😅

You can follow the path that tries to steer clear of them to one side, but it’s hard on the way back, not wanting to take a more direct route!

Not much of a summit, and whilst the wind picked up a little, the cairn was enough support for the mast.

Simon was still on the Buck, so another S2S with him. Fraser was back home but called in on 2m. 2m was dead otherwise, so back to HF. This time 40m, a S2S with England, then a S2S on 17m and then one QSO on 10m to North Carolina.

Back down to the ski centre, for a cup of tea and slice of tiffen to go.