Although a successful one, this wasn’t a great activation. I tend to be a “glass half full” person but it’s difficult finding positive things to say here so it’ll be brief.
Firstly I started off from the wrong point, I should have parked at a car park just off the haul road but instead started further up the road a little at the other side of a stream. I had to walk a little more and cross through a boggy field to get to the reservoir. The route I took can be viewed here but I’d not recommend. 👎
Weather conditions on the day, very hot with temperatures peaking at 25c and no wind. 🥵
I did see a route marked on OpenStreetMap from the reservoir to the summit, but when on the hill there is nothing to be seen. As I started to make progress up the terrain, gradient and hot weather made for a horrible experience. Strava shows getting to the top took 43 minutes of walking time but it was a lot longer than that.
At the summit, the lack of wind meant there was a lot of flies. I was with Douglas MM7DCD again and at the summit we were both waving our hands around clearing flies away. 🪰
As mentioned in my prior post the band conditions have been pretty poor recently and again I experienced this on the HF bands. I made 3 quick contacts on my Quansheng UV-K5 then started to work 20M. I shouted for 30 minutes on 20M and made 4 contacts, I shouted for a further 30 minutes on 40M and only managed 3 contacts finishing the activation with 10 contacts.
The walk back down in the high temperatures, with the lack of path and steep gradient wasn’t enjoyable.
Glad the activation was successful as I don’t think I’ll do that one again. There may be a more longer pleasant route up, but I’d avoid walking up from the reservoir like I did.