Kerloch GM/ES-059 (again) because no-one else loves it

The forecast was for fog, and overwhelming dreichness...  But,  if you were to go far enough east you might just be ok.

So it had to be GM/ES-059, Kerloch in far away (well, an hour) Aberdeenshire.  Kerloch is a nice little (534m) hill due south of Banchory, due west of Stonehaven, with stunning views of the North East of Scotland from Aberdeen right around. And, for some reason, no-one loves it.  I've provided the last 3 activations of a total of 7 this millennium.

The walk requires a drive over Cairn O'Mount and a start from the North walking south on easy tracks - at least at the start.  Once you reach the dogleg in the forest the pitch is quite steep and the track becomes very very rough and is like (aka is) walking in a river bed.

The drive got very very murky, in fact Cairn O'Mount was down to about 20m vis and required fog lights

Once we started the walk it was OK on this side of the hill but still clagged over on top

The land here is very very fertile, self seeded trees are all over the path, and it was good to see that there had been considerable support from the European Economic Community for Scotland's forestry infrastructure

As we approached the summit the weather from the north was clearing rapidly

But the summit was still covered

But as we approached the summit the rapidly clearing weather opened up brilliant views

We'd gone there to do a bit of radio as well as enjoy the brilliant views (secondary motivation only)

And how did it go!   Well very well.  We started out on 40m and things were definitely buzzing.  Karl M3FEH was there for us as usual with a great 58 signal at 1048Z and by 1107 we'd worked 24 including 4 summit to summit qsos to Italy and Switzerland and Czech republic.  Dave G4IAR was a cracking 59+ as was Ken G0FEX, the first time I've heard 40m this good to middle England for some time.  Quite a few of the regulars are in the log including of course Don G0RQL, Pedro EA2CKX, Danny ON4VT, Bill G0WSB and many more.

When 40m dried up I saw a spot for Nick G4OOE/P on G/TW-004 on 80m so put the coils on for another S2S on that band.  3 more qsos on 80m resulted with MM0XPZ, G4IAR and M3FEH.  Time to try 20m which seemed a bit slower than usual although I hear conditions at this part of the sunspot cycle have been very bad.  However never mind the quantity, see the quality.  An S2S with SV2RUJ/p in Greece was followed by N4EX in North Carolina and a few minutes later W1OW in Mass.

Changing conditions on 40m made for another visit there for even shorter skip contacts including Phil G4OBK in Yorkshire.

All in all, very productive for my 4 watts out from an FT817 and link dipole for 20/40 (the 80m coils go in at that link) with a peak qso rate of 4 per minute at two separate points!

The views are completely stunning from this summit.  From my perch I was looking out North to Banchory and North East to Aberdeen

But all around the views were so stunning I couldn't decide which photographs to leave out.  So I didn't.  Here follows a completely self indulgent select of views from the top of Kerloch:

And finally with a gentle smokey haze drifting in from the west (heather burning)

It was time to wave goodbye and head down

Via the slightly disturbing depth gauge just outside Strachan

To a well deserved pint in one of Banchory's 6 CAMRA listed pubs!

Oh,  and Aberdeenshire made special mention in the next days weather forecast 

for having been up to 20C!

It proved to have been a very good choice!

THE END