2nd October 2004
GM/WS-280 - Doire Ban - 566m - NN090643 - 2 points - 0730bst
3 QSOs: 40m CW - 2, 2m FM - 1
Feeling the need to blow away the cobwebs I decided to defy the wet and windy forecast but the weather won, eventually driving me off the hill and causing me to abandon the other two tops I was planning to activate.
Parking again at the West Highland Way access point (NN100667) at about 0630bst, I walked across the bridge and then sought to ford the stream issuing from Lochan Lunn Da-Bhra. This was in spate after all the rain and posed a problem until I discovered a plank and handrail just upstream from the ford (NN095664) which had previous evaded my headtorch beam. I gingerly picked my way through a couple of hundred metres of bog and, thinking I had reached the hillside proper, relaxed only to plunge thigh deep into what felt like a bottomless pit of runny sphagnum soup. Thankfully managed to lurch to the other side before sinking too deep and extracated myself before too much seeped into my boots. I was glad I had set out with full Goretex body armour!
The north ridge is a pleasant plod and teases with a few false summits before a little cairn announces the summit. There was a stiff wind but was actually quite dry and even bright when I reached the top at about 0745 a little behind schedule. Unfortunately my walking pole jammed so was operating with even lower dipole than normal at about 1.5m. A few minutes calling on 7.028MHz rasied G3RDQ in Andover also using only 2 watts but got no other responses so wandered up to 2m for a quick chat to Robin, GM7PKT. Back down on 40m I worked ON5 AG and then moved up onto the higher bands.
The weather then become really quite hostile as the winds intensified and heavy shower of horizontal sleet swept in. This combined with rising static levels had me collapsing the antenna and legging it off the summit for shelter. With no respite for 20 mins I wandered back up, packed up the antenna and called it a day!
Photo of this top in rather more pleasant conditions is at the bottom of the previous post below.
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