SOTA Activations April-Sept
All the summits!
My attempts to write up each activation hasn’t been going very well for the past five months or so. This post is trying to catch up, as I’m never going to write up 48 activations since Morven on the 25th April!
The Lake District
For my birthday, I decided to take a trip with my friends and we’d go to the Lakes and climb some hills. As I was organising it, the trip was to maximise SOTA summits and points. I’d made a plan on my wiki, and the aim was to get at least 100 points, and try for 120. This would be 3x 40, where there were three of us and we had all turned 40 in the past 6 months. I was a lot more ambitious than my friends were willing, although I did manage more than 100 points over 13 summits. Highlights included Saudi Arabia returning my CQ on Cross Fell, and a glorious day on Old Man of Coniston. I did write up more on the reflector - although this was a forced effort on my part to write it up somewhere.
Glorious May Sunshine
Back from the Lakes and I enjoyed the amazing sunny weather we had during May by visiting several Munros. It included a huge 40 km loop of Lochnagar and three other (non-SOTA) Munros, where I was certainly knackered by the end. Then some trips further afield down to the Beinn a’Ghlo trio and then even further to the nice 10 pointer pair of Ben More on Stob Beinnein.
I finished off May with a couple of 4-pointers with Fraser, MM0EFI, on Cook’s Cairn and Corryhabbie Hill. We took a different route from the east, which was going to be “an easy cycle on wind farm tracks”, except we only cycled on easy wind farm tracks for about 500m! I wrote about it here.
I also managed to get two punctures in my car tyres on the way home 😢.
SOTA before the summer holidays
Once the kids are off school for the summer, I knew it would be hard to find time to go out on the hills. Plus we were going away on a few trips, so the run up to the summer holidays in June and July were a continuation of trying to get some good points in, plus slowly ticking off the GM/ES list.
I managed 8 GM/ES summits, including the big trip of Cairn Toul and Braeriach (the second and third highest summits in GM/ES and the third and fourth highest mountains in the UK) which I’ve been wanting to do for a while. I ended up doing them back to back with another long trip out to Bynack More from Braemar. I wrote up both on the reflector. A total of 85 km across two days!
I also want to activate all the Cairngorms national park summits, and so picked off a few more.
Summer Scottish Isles
To go six weeks without an activation would be terrible, and so I did manage a couple. One on Arran, Goat Fell, with my eldest. It was a lovely day, and we climbed from the east side of the island to avoid some of the crowds until we met the main path. The lower third was hard work, as it was pretty warm, no wind and so lots of flies. Once we got up into the glen the complaining subsided and the walk was enjoyable. I just did 2m on the top, but that was sufficiently embarrassing, given the crowds of other people up there and me not really being able to speak quietly whilst on the radio 😅.
I also managed to squeeze in a quick activation of Ben Aigan. This helped tidy up all the northeast 1 pointers. Also had a QSO with MM5ALX, which was a little confusing at first!
The Last Munro
Not for me! A friend, Tim - G5OLD - who after 30 years has finally climbed all 282 munros! 🥇 He left Beinn na Lap till last, and it sure made for a great day out. A drive, a train ride to the UK’s most remote and highest train station (also features in Trainspotting), a climb to the top, wind, rain, sun, celebratory drinks and cake, then a lovely pint and venison casserole at the end.
Write up and chat on the reflector. At some point a video should come out.
September wrap up
Once the schools went back, I resumed my SOTA activations. Some repeats from last year of the Cairngorm mountains for the points, and smaller ones to fit in with the schedule. Redoing Ben Avon and Beinn a’Bhuird this year, I also took the time to find the secret bothy.
When redoing Ben Macdui, a two other couples were out doing activations in the area. Caroline, MM3ZCB, and Martyn, MM1MAJ, were on Geallaig Hill, and then Jeff, WJ7V, and Amy, KC7JNU, were on Morrone, so nice to get some S2Ss with them on 2m. Some more on that day here.
After our trip to Beinn na Lap, Fraser and I were also keen to venture futher afield again, and this time we went up North to Ben Wyvis and Little Wyvis. I wrote these two up on the reflector.
Into Q4
The final few months of 2025 are nearly here, and the weather is starting to turn. The past couple of summits have had a cold wind, and I’ve started packing my gloves, as summit temps can be 5°C or less with wind chill now. My aim is still a combination of points towards Mountain Goat, and activate the final few GM/ES summits - seven remain, five 2-pointers and two 1-pointers. All but one are in Angus, and will probably take three trips to do those six and then a final trip out to Tomintoul for Carn Daimh (GM/ES-052). I’ll aim to save these for winter bonus season when that starts on 30th November.
I’ve also been trying to climb any non-SOTA Munros that I pass, and so the next time I do Beinn Bhrotain, I should also do Monadh Mor. Although this adds more time, so limits when I can do it. I suppose there’s always next year!
Finally, it’s nice to do new hills, and so I’ll try and do some of those too. Which means, in conclusion, I just want to do them all!