St Sunday Crag Hike - G/LD-010 SOTA (2020)

Summits on the Air Activation Report

Activation Date: Saturday 17th October, 2020.
Activator(s): Richard M1HAX.
Summit: St Sunday Crag, Lake District, England.
Summit ID: SOTA reference G/LD-010 (8 points).
Summit Height: 841m elevation, 161m prominence.
Summit Location: Lat./Long. 54.51194, -2.97584. Maidenhead Grid IO84mm.
Also Activated: G/LD-003, G/LD-007, G/LD-022.
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: 9 (2m FM).

Trip Notes

St Sunday Crag is a prominent peak in the Fairfield group of the English Lake District’s Eastern Fells, known for its distinctive rounded shape. It’s a key feature in the Patterdale landscape and is often called ‘the Ullswater Fell’ due to its prominence in the Ullswater views.

For this walk I would start my ascent from the summit of Fairfield which I had hiked to earlier in the day. St Sunday Crag is located on the northeastern ridge of Fairfield, and the route from the flat Fairfield summit descends down and over Cofa Pike towards Deepdale Hause, a narrow ridge point heavily used by hikers.

From Deepdale Hause I continued to follow the rising ridge of St Sunday Crag in a northeast direction for about 1.3km before arriving at the summit.

I set up my VHF radio for the fourth and final time of the day, working a quick handful of chasers before packing up ready to descend back towards Patterdale. This SOTA day hike would bag me 32 activator points, but if completed during the winter bonus period it is worth an impressive 44 points.

Beyond St Sunday Crag, there is a rapid descent to the lower Birks plateau, where the route continues northeast to reunite with the first leg of the circular route retracing the path back to the car park in Patterdale.

This 20km circular walk is a fantastic day out for the competent hill walker with some easy scrambling fun early in the day crossing Striding Edge. I look forward to repeating this route next year during the winter bonus period.

Photos

Below are some photographs taken during my activation of St Sunday Crag on Saturday 17th October, 2020.

Walking Route for St Sunday Crag

The interactive map below shows my GPS track taken to the SOTA activation zone for St Sunday Crag. 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-010 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 M1HAX/P from G/LD-010 St Sunday Crag 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 St Sunday Crag:

• Sotl.as Summit Page for G/LD-010 St Sunday Crag.
• Hill Bagging UK Summit Page for St Sunday Crag.
• Google Earth view of St Sunday Crag.
• Wikipedia entry for St Sunday Crag.
• 360° Panorama near summit of G/LD-010 St Sunday Crag.

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