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| Route taken by Phil G4OBK and friend Geoff on April 3rd 2011 |
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| Parking Spot for Buckbarrow |
Our final day in Wasdale and so we focussed on another linear walk to take in the three Wainwrights of Buckbarrow, Seatallan and Middle Fell. After a cordial conversation with a local farmer out on his quad bike at our parking spot near Harrow Head we set out on our route to where Geoff's car was parked at Netherbeck Bridge.
Geoff as ever was raring to go, to get finished and return home to his place near Malvern. The weather on the day was starting in a similar manner to the day before, with mist above 1500'.
It took just 34 minutes to reach the top of Buckbarrow LDW-197 with the route curving to the right and then back left near the top to surmount the crags.
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| Tosh Tarn seen on our ascent to Buckbarrow |
With the screening offered by Illgill Head and Whin Rigg across the other side of Wast Water the more distant contacts on VHF were rmissing, with Sue G1OHH in Lancaster being the furthest south. To their credit in an effort to contact Buckbarrow, Mark MM1MPB/M and Geoff GM4WHA/M had done their sums by looking at a terrain profile. They knew that a contact on VHF from Annan was unlikely with the gear that I was using so they had gone mobile and had driven out on the Galloway Coast near Sandyhills so as to be sure of making a contact. I received a 3x1 report from both operators!
On our walk up to Seatallan we met someone for a chat who is "slightly famous" - none other than David Powell -Thompson who acted as the researcher on Julia Bradbury's Wainwright Walks, leading and accompanying her and the crew in the making of several of the programmes. David lives in Nether Wasdale and we had met him the previous year when we took part in the 80th anniversary recreation of Wainwrights first walk in the Lake District up Orrest Head. We enjoyed discussing our ascent of Yewbarrow two days previous, a fell which David thought was marvellous. I had to agree - it is one fell which I must revisit.
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| David Powell - Thompson |
We reached Seatallan LDW-093 (which also qualifies for SOTA) just under an hour after leaving Buckbarrow and from here the ham radio session was more successful. The first contact was with M0BLF/P on Coniston Old Man and we followed that with another summit to summit QSO with my good friend Iain MM3WJZ/P who was on Corserine SS-033 in Scotland. Contacts were also enjoyed into Wales, the Isle of Man and the usual suspects to the south Bob G6ODU and Brian G4ZRP were also logged, who we had been unable to hear from the lower summit of Buckbarrow.
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| Operating in the mist in the shelter on Seatallan |
27 contacts were completed including Mark and Geoff who had now returned back to base in Annan. We lingered in the shelter for over an hour before descending to the boggy moor north of Greendale Tarn where we started our climb up to Middle Fell LDW-135.
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| Greendale Tarn in the col between Seatallan and Middle Fell |
Our activation of Middle Fell was completed in 20 minutes with 18 stations being logged. The nearest I got to a summit to summit contact was with Dave GW0UPO/M who was sat in his car on The Great Orme at Llandudno but that did not count for SOTA as he was inside his vehicle. The walk directly down to Geoff's car at Netherbeck Bridge, was quite tricky in places, with some scrambling involved. If there was a path we did not find it. Our Wasdale Tour ended at 2.30pm but we needed to return to the dale later in the summer to climb the Wainwrights of Lingmell, Sca Fell, and Slight Side.
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