Jared Forte

I planned to activate these two summits, picking ones relatively close by before winter bonus period starts, and I can focus on ones that are close to each other. The weather forecast was not brilliant, a -5°C windchill with 90% of light rain meant it was not going to be easy.

GW/SW-002, Waun Fach (8 points)

I left home at 6:30am, arriving at the Dinas Inn Car Park at around 8am. You had a fair bit of a walk along a bridleway, then road, before getting to a path that goes up the mountain. The path was extremely muddy, where at one point I was starting to lose traction due to the lack of any foliage to grip onto. Eventually, it did settle down, going to a more comfortable gradient, where more snow appeared on the ground after a cold spell during the week.

As I got to around 700m, solid sheets of ice started appearing, meaning I had to leave the path a few times as they were frozen solid with water on top, leaving a very slippery surface. I reached the top just after 9am, promptly calling out on my FT-65, three contacts came in quick succession, but in the true spirit of SOTA that illusive fourth contact took nearly half an hour to get - not fun in the cold!

Once I made my QSOs I hastily made my way down, I soon realised why this path was so slippery, the amount of visitors to Waun Fach must be great, I saw a group of around 20 people on my way down! I got back to the van and put the kettle on, recharging with a cup of coffee before I made the drive around to Black Mountain. Previously when activating these two I always decided to make the long hike out from Gospel Pass, but due to the poor weather I decided a half hour drive would mean I could warm up and have a shorter hike.

GW/SW-041, Black Mountain (6 points)

I arrived at the base of Hay Bluff, noticing a lady, who I parked next to, arriving at her car, she looked very cold and commented the rain was meant to stop in an hour (spoiler, it never did). I then left the van, heading around the side of Hay Bluff onto the Offa's Dyke path, opting for the more sheltered approach. This was a smart decision I thought, as I was able to keep out of the wind and rain for a short while until I got onto the ridgeline. However, once on the ridgeline the path was pretty treacherous, there are these stone slabs which were under a small amount of water, and I slipped due to ice being under some of the water, getting my gloves soaked.

I soon got to the activation zone, and due to the nature of the summit being a plateau there is no protection from the elements, so I had to be a bit savvy and I decided to go a bit further down the path, where there was a small ridge I could hide under whilst operating. I setup the antenna in the elements, and ducked down to do some HF.

The bands were in great conditions, I got a huge pileup on both 20m and 40m, making a sharp 40ish QSOs in the span of half an hour. Knowing that I could get too cold at any moment I had to pull the plug and call QRT. The highlight of the activation being that I worked the United States for the first time, not only getting one QSO, but TWO in the activation. This amazing activation put my mind off the weather and really made it worthwhile.

I then headed back down, happy with what I achieved for the day and got home at around 3pm. All in all two more good activations which definitely were challenging, but real fun! I look forward to more SOTA adventures this winter.