Sunday, April 04, 2010

Tallentire Hill

By the time I had finished repairing the TH-205E the sky had cleared and the sun had come out so after tea I thought I should go for a bit of fresh air and exercise. Olga is still suffering from a chesty cough and didn't want to come so I decided to drive over to Tallentire village and walk to the top of Tallentire Hill. A couple of weeks ago I had spent a couple of hours parked near the top making some contacts from my HF mobile station. But it isn't possible to get right to the top by car unless you have a 4 wheel drive vehicle, because the track is rather stony. Even if you had a 4x4, there is nowhere to park off the road right at the top. The actual summit is in a small field and accessible through an unlocked gate from the track, but it is presumably private land so whilst walkers enjoying the view may be welcome, hams setting up a portable station would probably be accused of trespassing.

But on a day like today it is worth going just for the view. The picture above shows the trigonometrical point (a reference point for measuring height used by the Ordnance Survey) looking south east towards the Skiddaw range. On the larger version (click on the small one to see it) you can see snow-covered mountains beyond Keswick in the background.

The next picture shows the view south west and on the large version you can see some of the buildings of Cockermouth nestling in its valley. The big mountain on the left is Grasmoor with its steep drop towards Crummock Water. In the distance you can see the Buttermere fells.

The last picture shows the view north across the Solway to Dumfries and Galloway in Scotland. I don't know the names of the Scottish mountains.

I would love to own the field containing this summit so I could use it as a portable site whenever I wanted, even if it meant buying a 4x4 vehicle! With the take-offs shown in the pictures the site might be quite good for VHF, so I will have to take the MFD and the FT-817 up there one day when there is a 2m contest in progress.

Today I didn't manage to raise anyone with the TH-F7E I took with me. But despite the sun it was pretty cold up there with a stiff breeze so after a few calls on 145.500 I headed back down again.

7 comments:

Jspiker said...

Wow....what beautiful country!
Looks like a great place to pitch a tent and watch the stars. Will the owners allow that if you don't build a fire and leave no trash? I've always heard England was pretty "walker friendly"...leave no trace and leave it exactly like you find it. Is this true?

John N8ZYA

Paul Stam PAØK said...

Hello Julian, you are a lucky one to live in such a nice place. My place is rather flat. Though we have beautiful dunes here. I will take some pictures or video of dunes the here. Good luck with the TH-205E and good wishes for Olga, I hope she'll recover soon. 73 Paul

Wally said...

Julian,
Are you sure you are living in the UK? Unbelievable view...
Next week We will spending some time in London. But I doubt I will have this kind of view...72 de Wally

Unknown said...

Thanks for all the comments. As far as I know, John, in England you only have the right to walk along a path from A to B. You are not permitted to camp except in designated camp sites. If you were, then you'd have people camping everywhere leaving their litter etc. as did happen up until the 1960s when the law to prevent it was passed.

In Scotland I believe it is different, but Scotland is a much less densely populated place and there is more space for people to lose themselves in.

Jspiker said...

Thanks Julian,

Here in the US is nearly impossible to walk from A to B because of the "No Trespassing" signs. But I've camped many places and never built a fire. You can't tell I've ever been there. (those were my younger days). I miss them.

Do you have those ATV's and dirt bikers running all over the place?
That sure is a beautiful place. Reminds me of the "shire" in the Hobbits books. Hihi

John N8ZYA

Unknown said...

John.

Here access to the country is quite well organized. We have public footpaths which are legal rights of way over private land. The owner can be prosecuted if they block them. There are also "permissive paths", where a landowner grants the public permission to walk on a path over his land without conceding any rights to do so. Both of these are for walkers only.

Next up are bridleways, which as the name suggests are for horseriders to use. Walkers can use them too, as can cyclists (including mountain bikes) but no powered vehicles.

Finally we have "green lanes" which are unsurfaced roads that anyone can use. I don't see many ATVs, possibly because we don't have a network of such roads here so you can't go far off-road. Also fuel (and everything else connected to owning vehicles) is expensive here so I suspect off-roading isn't as popular as it is over there.

Jspiker said...

A true blessing in disguise....I hate the sound of those infernal things and they're terribly destructive to the land.

A time and a place for everything...don't like them in the woods!

John N8ZYA