A little hill with no bad weather or perishing cold (well, just a little bit)

I had a little bit of time on Saturday, I had to go out to the shops anyway so went via a hill, like you do.  Just north west of Kirriemuir is little Mile Hill, which only being 409m ASL is a full P150 summit.   Vital statistics:  GM/ES-076  WAB:NO35  no trig point.

The route in from the south looked fairly easy, but there seemed quite a few walkhighland reports who'd had issues that way. Parking is tricky on the B951 so I reckoned the best was to go round to Knowhead of AuldAllan and park at the old Balintore castle gatehouse like I did for Cat Law.

There is a fairly easy track that heads to the house marked Hilton,  it was clearly fairly crispy with the ground heading towards frozen.  I became grateful for this later when hitting some of the boggy bits.  There was a wee pond just before hilton which was just on the verge of getting fully frozen.

Just after Hilton I cut off cross country and headed towards the summit, getting crispier!

As I got to the saddle I disturbed a couple of pairs of deer,  which headed of in opposite directions.  See if you can spot one of them.

Clearly I hadn't disturbed them all

There had been a light snow falling all the way up but just as I started up the main summit there was an apparition

 The snow didn't stop of course.   On the way up, the summit had seemed lightly dusted,  when you actually got there it seemed a bit more than dusted!

From the top there was a nice view of Cat Law which had been the target just a couple of weeks ago

The view from the shack was quite pretty,looking towards the Perthshire hills

But the sun seemed to get very low very quickly! But then sunset is 15:30 here now!

So how did the radio go?

I only realised when I got back that my attempt to post on the SOTA facebook page before I went was actually to my own timeline.   Just as well that Andrew,M0MYA, had just yesterday created the group messenger page and I posted on that!   It got me my first QSO on 40m with Karl M3FEH who was coming up here from Cornwall with a very respectable signal for low power.   Then started a small run of 12 QSOs from SOTA chasers over 15 minutes.  Including Don G0RQL who features on a very high percentage of activations, and EA2CKX who always surprises me by making the trip on 40m at that time of day.  A lot of usual culprits were also there, including Mick M0MDA and Mike G6TUH.  A qsy to the WAB net on 7160 (+ 1and a bit today) netted another 13 in 9 minutes.

An aerial change for 20m and 14285 seemed to have another sitting tenant.  14305 seemed OK and Michael, DB7MM/P came straight back!  Not on a summit but at  castle (did I nick your frequency Michael <blush>).   A run of 19 QSOs in 15 minutes then took place, including, as always, Manuel, EA2DT  plus a few of the other regulars, dj5av for two bands, ok1sde, dl3hxx, dd5lp, ea2lu.  I had my first SOTA Canadian with VE1WT in Nova Scotia who gave me 57, not bad with 4watts, plus AC2KL in NY state.

I suddenly realised it was 1500, perilously close to sunset, plus I was starting to feel quite cold.  I started sorting the rucksack ready to quickly pack when there was a quiet call on the frequency I'd vacated.   Then ensued an S2S with S57MS/P on S5/BI087!  Saved by the bell.   I then quickly packed and started heading down.


I headed further round the hill to the North, noting the rather steep aspect it offers, I'd bottled out of going straight down

That's a nice view of Cat Law in the fading light.  Looking North west towards Glenshee, there was a cracking view of the summits in the alpine glow

As I got down to the pond by Hilton, it was clear it was a lot more frozen than when I'd last passed by!

As I drew near the car it was getting quite darkish with Balintore Castle picking up the last of the light on its windows, someone is restoring it, good luck!   A nice wee walk with a bit of radio,  only about 6kms, but with a total ascent of about 280m (you have to go down at the start),  a nice way to spend a Saturday afternoon.