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Pic d’Issarbe F/PO-171 (4 points) I’d done the Pic d’Issarbe on my last trip to the Pyrenees, and it’s a lovely, easy four-point walk at this time of year. The site is a minor ski resort in the winter and as such has a car park which was almost deserted on this September morning. The…
I’ve recently returned from a few days in the Basque Country, which included a few summit excursions. Although I’m aware that I’m behind on writing up some of my other SOTA trips over the summer, I’ve decided to type up my notes on this recent trip first before I forget the detail. Aratz EA2/VI-003 (6…
Back in November at work, we ran ‘Reset Week’. Basically, we had a problem: we had three products needing work and three teams that weren’t quite the right shape and had the wrong skill-sets in the wrong places. But by making the teams gel, the result would be that the resulting teams wouldn’t have worked…
It’s time for a bit of work-related, personal news… My career has been one where I’ve followed a slightly unusual path, jumping at opportunities that have presented themselves. From a languages degree to Technical Authoring, then to Agile as a Scrum Master, I’ve been keen to explore different areas in a way that’s hopefully also…
I’ve now returned from a long weekend at the annual Ham Radio exhibition at Friedrichshafen, a beautiful city on the shores of Lake Constance in southern Germany. The normal way for British people to get to FDH as it has become known, is to fly to Zurich and take the train to Romanshorn before then…
Last year, for the late May bank holiday, I set myself the challenge of getting 100 SOTA points in the weekend in the Vosges area of eastern France, an area renowned for being an easy place to get lots of points fairly quickly. This year, in May 2019, my challenge was to do 120 points…
This week, I’m on the GT3PYE/P DXpedition to the Isle of Man with the Camb-Hams. As part of the trip, Rob M0VFC, Colin G4ERO and I have been activating all the SOTA summits on the Isle of Man. It’s perfectly possible to do them all in a single day, amassing 18 points from the five…
After tackling Pen Llithrig on a less-than-successful day yesterday, it was now Easter Sunday. Knowing the traffic would be bad on Monday, I wanted to get in a quick morning walk before heading back to Cambridge in the afternoon, ahead of most of the cars. Cadair Berwyn (GW/NW-012, worth 8 points) fitted the bill perfectly.…
I was up early, despite the long walk around Y Garn and Glyder Fawr yesterday, ready to head on another double-hill day, walking around Carnedd Llewelyn and Pen Llithrig y Wrach. The car park for this one is in the entrance to the campsite at SH685602. The campsite allows non-residents to park in the layby…
I’ve recently returned from what has become an annual tradition of spending Easter weekend away climbing hills for SOTA. Last year (and admittedly Easter was earlier), the Beast from the East had just hit and I was walking through snow on Pen-Y-Fan. This year, the weather was completely different with bright sunshine, hardly any wind,…