Monamenach, Badandun Hill, Mealna Letter (Duchray Hill) & Meall Mor

Monamenach

I've been planning on doing the “four Folda fours”, specifically Mount Blair, GM/ES-035, Mealna Letter, GM/ES-043, Monamenach, GM/ES-028 and Badandun Hill, GM/ES-037. However, I couldn’t find a route that I could walk the lot in one day, certainly not one December day in the light. I did find that I could chain together four individual walks and drive between the starting points. But I wasn’t sure if I could fit it all in, leaving home at 7am and being back by 5pm. So I settled on multiple visits. Plus Gerald, G4OIG, was going to be visiting at the end of the week and doing some of the summits in the area and I thought it would be nice to meet in person, as well as a chance for 2m S2Ss, so I’d want to return on the Thursday.

For the Monday, I’d decided on Monamenach, Badandun Hill and then Mealna Letter, and then the Thursday I’d do Ben Gulabin, GM/CS-077, then Mount Blair. Interestingly the last person on Ben Gulabin was Gerald, almost exactly a year ago! This would let me have a S2S with Gerald and then meet him at the bottom of Mount Blair afterwards.

As Gerald was visiting, we knew the weather would be bad. It was forecast to snow overnight, and I was concerned about the roads, but looking on the snow gate cameras in the morning, it seemed like it was okay. I set off just after 7am, to arrive around 8:40am. First stop was Monamenach, the highest of the group.

It was a nice clear day, although chilly and windy - particularly on the summits - and brisk walk up from parking by the river, soon got me to the top of the hill.

Whilst there are a lot of handy posts at the summit, there was no shelter and it was blowing an icy gale. I followed the fence line down a little, and found a rock to hide behind. I setup on 2m and called my first CQ of the morning. It wasn’t too long and I had 4 contacts across Edinburgh and Glasgow. Fraser and others tried calling and listening back in Aberdeen area, but no luck. It started to sleet and I still had two more to go, so time to return to the car.

Time for hill number 2!

Badandun Hill

A short drive back down the road, and parking on the verge before the roadway entrance across the river, I was off on the next summit. This route isn’t the greatest, and was only picked for it’s short duration and short drive to the starting point. It starts out easy enough following the track and then crossing the field. It briefly follows a path that you could take the whole way up to the top, just a little longer. You have to jump the Fergus Burn, but it’s quite small in places, and then you start the slog straight up the hill to the summit.

After the sleeting on the way down from Monamenach, the sky was even clearer now, and I had good views back and forwards of my hills for the day.

Whilst the walk up was steep enough, it went by quickly and I was soon leaning into the wind on the summit. There wasn’t much shelter by the trig point, and the top hole was covered, but I did find the mast mount which happened to be behind a slight rise, so that offered as little relief. Making full use of the post, I felt very smart when I took this photo.

and then this…

At that moment it was very obvious that I should’ve attached the mast on the leeward side of the support, so the metal post didn’t act like my leg when I break sticks over it. 🤦

I collapsed the mast enough to get past the break and continued on 2m. Three repeat stations from the first summit, and another got it qualified and then I was “happy” to pack up and grump down the hillside back to the car. Luckily, I had packed a spare mast in the car.

On to the next hill!

Mealna Letter

A bit further to drive this time to the start of Mealna Letter, but plenty of space to park by the path entrance into the woods.

The track up is straight forward, just follow the track. When you come out of the trees, then the path disappears and you just make your way up the hill. It’s hard to go wrong as you’re aiming for the junction of the walls on the top of the first hill.

You then follow the wall along the top until you get to the summit. If you’re lucky the wall can be a wind break and makes it a pleasant walk. The summit cairn is away from the wall, and is worth visiting as it offers some nice views down to the loch below.

The sky was still clear and offered stunning views all around.

After two summits on VHF, I thought I’d try HF, particularly with the nice wall to shelter behind, and so setup for 40m.

I had a nice run on 40m, and start chasing summits on other bands. By this time it was 1:30pm and I was 1:30 ahead of schedule. I was starting to debate if I had enough time for a fourth! Ideally, I wanted to be leaving the area at 3:30pm to get home by 5, so if I could run back to the car by 2pm, then I’d have time…not for Mount Blair but for it’s neighbour, Meall Mor, GM/ES-058. Time for one Meall Mor!

Meall Mor

Off to the park on the patch of dirt outside the gate into the forest and then up the track. Again, an easy route to follow although the climb up to the summit along the wall, whilst sheltered, is just heather and quite steep in places. Another summit benefitting from a nice wall to shelter behind, I setup again on HF and this time tried 20m.

I had a big pile up on 20m, and whilst I wanted to be packing up at 3pm, I kept saying “QRZ?”! It did eventually die down about 10 past, and I packed up and headed down. The setting sun cast a strange light over the land - my phone camera doesn’t do it justice.