Carn Mor Dearg Hike - GM/WS-003 SOTA (2020)

Summits on the Air Activation Report

Activation Date: Monday 31st August, 2020.
Activator(s): Richard M1HAX.
Summit: Carn Mor Dearg, Western Scotland, Scotland.
Summit ID: SOTA reference GM/WS-003 (10 points).
Summit Height: 1220m elevation, 162m prominence.
Summit Location: Lat./Long. 56.80525, -4.98662. Maidenhead Grid IO76mt.
Also Activated: GM/WS-001.
Distance: 19.2km travelled with 1503m of ascent.
Difficulty: SAC Grade T3 / Grade 1 Scramble.^(?)
Elapsed Time: 7hr 15m (incl. operating and other summit(s) on the same hike).
Weather: Feels like -0.6°C, 19 kph SSW wind, 87% humidity.
Radio Equipment: Yaesu FTM100D, MFJ-1714, Zippy 4200mAh 4S LiFePo4. Yaesu VX6, Diamond SRH770S.
Callsign Used: MM1HAX/P.
Contacts: 9 (2m FM, 70cm FM).

Trip Notes

Enamoured with the beauty of the Scottish mountains following my recent trip to the Fisherfield Forest, I decided to make the journey north once again to hike to the summit of Ben Nevis GM/WS-001 via the well-known Carn Mor Dearg Arete route.

I drove up the evening before and slept in my car at the small and busy North Face Car Park south of Torlundy.

After an early start I proceeded to hike south up through the forest area following a track towards the northern slopes of Carn Mor Dearg. The weather was cold and cloudy, but thankfully it stayed dry all day.

The path winds up grassy slopes and scree more or less directly to the summit. I arrived at the top in a little over two hours from leaving the car park.

Using my 50-watt Yaesu FTM100D radio for VHF and my Yaesu VX6 for UHF, I was able to make nine local radio contacts from the summit.

After packing away the radio I continued south from the summit following the obvious arete line around towards Ben Nevis.

This route has sadly claimed a number of lives - but in good weather the experienced hill walker should not struggle with the relatively straightforward grade 1 scrambling terrain.

Enjoying the arete, I progressed onwards to Ben Nevis GM/WS-001.

Photos

Below are some photographs taken during my activation of Carn Mor Dearg on Monday 31st August, 2020.

Walking Route for Carn Mor Dearg

The interactive map below shows my GPS track taken to the SOTA activation zone for Carn Mor Dearg. Note that this summit was activated as part of a multi-summit hike and the map below shows the full route taken on the day. The GM/WS-003 summit area is marked on the map with a blue pin icon.

You can download the route shown above as a GPX file suitable for use with most GPS devices. This file is provided for information only, to support your own walk planning and research (it may contain navigation errors, detours and/or safety hazards). The route downloads provided here are governed by the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 licence.

Station Log

I logged the following 9 amateur radio contacts operating as MM1HAX/P from GM/WS-003 Carn Mor Dearg on Monday 31st August, 2020 (all times shown are UTC):

In the notes field I will usually log the other operator’s name and the signal report they provided. In accordance with the Summits on the Air rules, I do not make a log entry where a complete exchange of callsigns and signal reports was unsuccessful.

Additional Information

The following resources may be helpful to walkers, mountaineers and SOTA activators interested in Carn Mor Dearg:

• Sotl.as Summit Page for GM/WS-003 Carn Mor Dearg.
• Hill Bagging UK Summit Page for Carn Mor Dearg.
• Google Earth view of Carn Mor Dearg.
• Wikipedia entry for Carn Mor Dearg.
• 360° Panorama near summit of GM/WS-003 Carn Mor Dearg.

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