Stony Cove Pike Hike - G/LD-018 SOTA (2020)

Summits on the Air Activation Report

Activation Date: Sunday 18th October, 2020.
Activator(s): Richard M1HAX.
Summit: Stony Cove Pike, Lake District, England.
Summit ID: SOTA reference G/LD-018 (6 points).
Summit Height: 763m elevation, 171m prominence.
Summit Location: Lat./Long. 54.48206, -2.90008. Maidenhead Grid IO84nl.
Also Activated: G/LD-011.
Distance: 14.0km travelled with 905m of ascent.
Difficulty: SAC Grade T1.^(?)
Elapsed Time: 5hr 45m (incl. operating and other summit(s) on the same hike).
Weather: Feels like 6.1°C, 2 kph WSW wind, 96% humidity.
Radio Equipment: Yaesu FTM100D, MFJ-1714, Zippy 4200mAh 4S LiFePo4. Yaesu VX6, Diamond SRH770S.
Callsign Used: M1HAX/P.
Contacts: 18 (2m FM, 70cm FM).

Trip Notes

Stony Cove Pike, also known as Caudale Moor or John Bell’s Banner, is an isolated fell in the far eastern Lake District, standing across Kirkstone Pass from Red Screes. It marks the end of a ridge from High Street and is recognized as a Marilyn due to its notable topographic prominence, ranking as the sixteenth highest in the Lake District.

This would be the first mountain top activated for Summits on the Air on my last day of a weekend trip in the Lakes. It would be particularly significant for me as it would see my arrival at 1000 SOTA activator points, achieving the Mountain Goat award.

I started early from the Kirkstone Pass car park (free). A signpost on the roadside marks the start of the obvious path up the southwestern corner of the mountain, towards Pike How.

The wet path climbed steadily all the way to a large cairn marking the summit of Stony Cove Pike at 763 metres. Some navigation was required at the flat summit plateau to confirm the true summit (the activation zone is large).

I set up my Yaesu FTM100D radio, operating at 50 watts, and worked a number of stations. It was still quite early on Sunday morning so unsurprisingly the number of contacts in the logbook was limited. It was nevertheless good to speak with a number of regular chasers and share with them my achievement of Mountain Goat status. I managed to make one summit-to-summit contact with Mark M0NOM/P on the nearby summit of Gummer’s How.

I then continued on as a freshly minted Mountain Goat towards the summit of High Street. I would return this way later in the day, activating the summit for a second time on UHF using my Yaesu VX6.

Photos

Below are some photographs taken during my activation of Stony Cove Pike on Sunday 18th October, 2020.

Walking Route for Stony Cove Pike

The interactive map below shows my GPS track taken to the SOTA activation zone for Stony Cove Pike. 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-018 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 18 amateur radio contacts operating as M1HAX/P from G/LD-018 Stony Cove Pike on Sunday 18th 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 Stony Cove Pike:

• Sotl.as Summit Page for G/LD-018 Stony Cove Pike.
• Hill Bagging UK Summit Page for Stony Cove Pike.
• Google Earth view of Stony Cove Pike.
• Wikipedia entry for Stony Cove Pike.
• 360° Panorama near summit of G/LD-018 Stony Cove Pike.

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