Seat Sandal Hike - G/LD-022 SOTA (2020)

Summits on the Air Activation Report

Activation Date: Saturday 17th October, 2020.
Activator(s): Richard M1HAX.
Summit: Seat Sandal, Lake District, England.
Summit ID: SOTA reference G/LD-022 (6 points).
Summit Height: 737m elevation, 152m prominence.
Summit Location: Lat./Long. 54.49486, -3.01403. Maidenhead Grid IO84ll.
Also Activated: G/LD-003, G/LD-007, G/LD-010.
Distance: 20.2km travelled with 1637m of ascent.
Difficulty: SAC Grade T2.^(?)
Elapsed Time: 8hr 25m (incl. operating and other summit(s) on the same hike).
Weather: Feels like 5.0°C, 9 kph NNW wind, 95% humidity.
Radio Equipment: Yaesu FTM100D, MFJ-1714, Zippy 4200mAh 4S LiFePo4.
Callsign Used: M1HAX/P.
Contacts: 11 (2m FM).

Trip Notes

Seat Sandal is a fell located 4 kilometres to the north of Grasmere in the English Lake District, offering excellent visibility from the village. Despite its scenic presence, it often goes unnoticed in the shadow of its more famous neighbouring peaks, Helvellyn and Fairfield. The name Seat Sandal has its origins in the Old Norse language, with “Sandulfr” being an Old Norse name.

My route to the summit of the mountain starts from the top of Helvellyn which I had activated earlier in the day.

I descended south picking up a prominent trail which took in the summits of Nethermost Pike and High Crag before skirting around the peak of Dollywaggon Pike.

The path continued to head south, now descending towards Grisedale Tarn, before a short and steep climb up to the summit of Seat Sandal. The going was fairly easy although the weather continued to persist with light rain and low cloud.

Picking one of the several possible operating positions by a stone wall at the summit, I quickly set up my Yaesu FTM100D radio and made a number of local SOTA chaser contacts on VHF. I also made a summit-to-summit radio contact with Andy M0DCD/P on top of Whernside, some 50km away.

With its broad grassy summit and relatively close proximity to water from Grisedale Tarn, this mountain could make a good overnight summit to activate from.

After working all calling stations, I packed away the radio to head east towards the nearby fell of Fairfield.

Photos

Below are some photographs taken during my activation of Seat Sandal on Saturday 17th October, 2020.

Walking Route for Seat Sandal

The interactive map below shows my GPS track taken to the SOTA activation zone for Seat Sandal. 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 G/LD-022 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 11 amateur radio contacts operating as M1HAX/P from G/LD-022 Seat Sandal on Saturday 17th October, 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 Seat Sandal:

• Sotl.as Summit Page for G/LD-022 Seat Sandal.
• Hill Bagging UK Summit Page for Seat Sandal.
• Google Earth view of Seat Sandal.
• Wikipedia entry for Seat Sandal.
• 360° Panorama near summit of G/LD-022 Seat Sandal.

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