11/12 July 2004
Managed to activate 3 summits from an ambitious plan for 5. Even this resulted in a manic forced march for the 1110 train from Corrour with only minutes to spare!
Leum Uilleim - GM/WS-110 - 906m - 6 points
QSOs: 40m CW - 2, 2m FM - 2
Arrived at the summit to find difficult conditions on 40m. Nevertheless Pete, EI7CC came booming in as usual from Dublin following by a 339 report from G3TFV in Leicester. On 2m FM, GM7PKT (at home) & MM0PWR/M in Falkirk completed the activation in about an hour. I was unable to hear MM3USU, Falkirk just a few miles away from PWR or GM0AXY who had also tried earlier to work me from Edinburgh on 40m (I could hear him about 519, but he couldn't hear me).
These hills are about 200/300m lower than the Grey Corries last week and therefore *much* more difficult to get out to the central belt on VHF.
Beinn na Cloiche - GM/WS-253 - 646m - 2 points
QSOs: 40m CW - 4
A longish walk to this top took me past a temporary village of a bothy working party (about 10 tents). These were the only folk I saw for the whole trip.
Didn't even bother trying on VHF for this one, wouldn't have stood a chance. But 40m was also extremely difficult with the skip being too long for inter G contacts. Long calling brought nothing until Age, PA0XAW appeared strong as usual from the Netherlands. EI7CC from Dublin also seems to be completely independant of any propogation and thundered in at 599 again but it took me it two me about two and a half hours to activate the summit. Two other PA stations finally came to the rescue and allowed me to move on.
Glas Bheinn - GM/WS-177 - 792m - 4 points
QSOs: 40m CW - 5, 2m FM- 2
Obviously something had shifted in the ionosphere in the hour or two it took me to arrive to the top of Glas Bheinn. After working GM7PKT & MM3USU on 2m I put up the Walking Pole Dipole and on switching on the rig found G3CWI just finishing off a QSO. He came back to me for my first HF contact and then EI7CC, PA0XAW, GM4UBJ & GM0AXY all with strong signals. Sorry Richard for rather monopolising the frequency for a while!
This is an outstanding viewpoint and the evening sun was shining. Beautiful views down Loch Leven, across to a dramatic profile of the Aonach Eagach ridge and behind in the distance was the looming bulk of Ben Alder clearly visible. Most striking were the cliffs of Buachaille Etive Mor in sharp relief against the evening sky. Looking north I was able to see my route across the Grey Corries from last week. Magic.
I descended some way down the north ridge before deciding I had walked quite enough for the day and crawled into my bed for the night surrounded by inquisitive stags lurking at a distance. Had a very solid night's sleep and dreamt of a talking reindeer! Woke and a huge battle of mind over mattress (or thermarest) ensued with me eventually leaving the warm cocoon of my sleeping bag at about 7am.
The top of Creag Ghuanach is quite charming but 40m yielded no contacts and I was running rather short of time so didn't hang around too long. And then on closer examination of the map realised I was much tighter on time than I had realised. I collapsed two hours later at Corrour station with just 3 minutes to spare!
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