Sunday, 29 November 2015

A failed SOTA activation, but a very successful walk!

It had snowed on and off since 10AM,  which made it a very pleasant change from Saturday where it just rained (and rained).  Then suddenly at about 1pm there was a glimpse of sunshine. Surely it wouldn't be too much to ask for just a little walk?  Somewhere near?   Craigowl GM/SS-192 should surely be possible.  Go up to Hillside of Prieston, park as usual by the track, easy walk up and heading out at 1pm I could afford to be a bit late (sunset at 3:40pm) coming down as its an easy road (that serves the masts on top), what could go wrong?


Well that would be there being so much snow on the road that I couldn't get up to Hillside of Prieston



I had 3 attempts but just couldn't make it and there's nowhere to park unless you get to the top :-(  Still I did rather better than the Citroen I had to wait for stuck lower down the hill...

So plan B,  go to the new car park at Balkello, much lower giving a longer walk but still enough time?

There was clearly a lot more snow on the way up than I had expected:






Eventually I hove in site of the summit, rather later than I'd hoped as when I'd left Hillside of Prieston it had started to snow again and there had been rather a lack of views



By the time I got within striking distance of the summit I was much later than I had expected, somehow someone had stolen a couple of hours and it was past 3pm.



I could have picked a better route up, if I'd been able to see anything, but the obvious routes from the car park had put me on the hill way too far west, I know for future where to go, but decided a good walk had been had and there was no point taking unnecessary risks. It also looked like there was some more weather inbound:



But the view across to the proper hills was still nice:



Still, the walk down (following the route I _should_ have followed on the way up) was pretty stunning with nice views over snowy Dundee





 














And I was right, it did snow again on the way down,  this is the road to Auchterhouse!



 Well, no Radio (even if I did carry it all)  but always nice to get on a hill!
















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