It’s pretty rare for me to have a “failed” activation, but a recent trip to Scotland led to just that – so I figured I’d share a story of a successful summit but not a successful activation. Any other day of the year this would likely have been an easy activation – but we were up there on the 21st December and the weather was against us.
We parked on the road at NJ 27633738, there is a junction here that is marked as no parking due to logging activities – so we parked a little way up the narrow road, out of everyone’s way. That said, we were there on a Saturday and so didn’t see any activity (or even people) at all.
The hike through the forest land is really nice and we were sheltered from the weather, right up until the far corner of the forest at NJ 2925 3852. At this point you can turn South to climb Meikle Conval or head North to climb Little Conval. We picked Little Conval as it seemed like there was a better path to the summit.
As we started the final climb to the summit, the weather arrived. There was a yellow weather warning for wind, however up until this point it had been relatively calm. However, the wind started picking up quickly and now we were exposed as we left the tree line. The closer to the summit we got, the stronger the wind got. We stopped at one point to discuss whether we were going to continue the climb or to “bin it” and start our descent. I checked out current elevation and we were at about 500m of a 553m climb.
Of course, being so close to the summit we decided to press on. This was quickly punished by a hail storm, which thankfully only lasted about 30 minutes but made the last leg hellish. Winds were approximately 60mph which was manageable but uncomfortable and had us really leaning into the wind to make progress. We again discussed a descent, or alternatively “contouring” the hill to ascend from the back side. Contouring became the plan if the decent became too difficult.
The hailstorm passed and the skies became clear around the time we reached the summit. We stopped for a photo near the top and the sky was clear and blue – but the wind had not stopped. We paused for a few moments to take some photos and my hiking partner asked if I was going to attempt the activation. I didn’t even consider it. If I could manage to get the antenna up in that wind I doubt anyone could have heard us.