![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.m1cje.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/IMG_5048-300x169-1.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nThe\u00a0forecast<\/a>\u00a0was bad for Saturday and worse for Sunday.\u00a0 Persistent rain, winds to 50 mph, tops in cloud\u00a0 and temperatures just above freezing. It wasn\u2019t wrong!<\/p>\n We arrived at the car park below Hay Bluff just after 9am.\u00a0 There is normally plenty of room in the car park but this time someone had dumped a few piles of chippings in the car park, there was still plenty of room though.\u00a0 The wind was buffeting the car and the rain was lashing down.\u00a0 At this point we almost decided to turn around and head home again. But no, it couldn\u2019t really be that bad, could it? With a great deal of will power we managed to get kitted up and set out up the face of Hay Bluff.<\/p>\n There was still a bit of snow lying on the path but it was rapidly being eroded by the rain, that is until we reached the summit plateau where the rain was just forming pools on top of the ice that covered the paths.\u00a0 Added to the effect of the winds it made for some interesting walking.<\/p>\n We soon reached the summit cairn, if you can call it that, it\u2019s only a\u00a0six inch high\u00a0pile of a few small rocks, but still, it\u2019s\u00a0enough\u00a0to let you know you found it.<\/p>\n We set up the station and climbed into the emergency shelter for a bit of warmth and to try and keep the rain out of the equipment.<\/p>\n We soon had eight entries in the log before the wind blew the aerial off the mast so we packed away and set off back down the hill.<\/p>\n Date \u2013 10th February 2018<\/p>\n Postcode \u2013 HR3 5RJ (see text)<\/p>\n Parking \u2013 SO 239 373<\/p>\n Radio \u2013 Kenwood TH-D74 + 50W PA on 2m<\/p>\n Antenna \u2013 2 ele dipole<\/p>\n Band \u2013 144 FM<\/p>\n Contacts \u2013 8<\/p>\n SOTA points \u2013 6+3<\/p>\n Group \u2013 Myself & Peter<\/p>\n A short drive across Abergavenny brought us to the parking for Sugarloaf viewpoint.\u00a0 Again there is no problem parking here with space probably for twenty or more cars.<\/p>\n There are many routes up Sugarloaf as it is a popular walking spot.\u00a0 Even on a day like this we passed plenty of walkers, albeit mostly they were on the lower levels.<\/p>\n It didn\u2019t take long to reach the summit where we set up the station at the trig point. The trig point base has been heavily eroded over time so it now sits quite some way above the surrounding hill top.<\/p>\n Once again we made eight contacts although by this time the wind had dropped considerably so we were able to operate in the open and without the aerial being blown down.<\/p>\n The return to the car was straightforward and the weather cleared as we descended providing some lovely views over the Usk valley and even a hint of some sunshine at one point.<\/p>\n Date \u2013 10th February 2018<\/p>\n Postcode \u2013 NP7 7LA<\/p>\n Parking \u2013 SO 268 167<\/p>\n Radio \u2013 Kenwood TH-D74 + 50W PA on 2m<\/p>\n Antenna \u2013 2 ele dipole<\/p>\n Band \u2013 144 FM<\/p>\n Contacts \u2013 8<\/p>\n SOTA points \u2013 2+3<\/p>\n Group \u2013 Myself & Peter<\/p>\n GW\/SW-041 Black Mountain The\u00a0forecast\u00a0was bad for Saturday and worse for Sunday.\u00a0 Persistent rain, winds to 50 mph, tops in cloud\u00a0 and temperatures just above freezing. It wasn\u2019t wrong! We arrived at the car park below Hay Bluff just after 9am.\u00a0 There is normally plenty of room in the car park but this time someone had … Continue reading Black Mountain & Sugarloaf 2018<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":199,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,14,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-302","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","category-south-wales","category-summits-on-the-air","category-welsh-summits"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.m1cje.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.m1cje.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.m1cje.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.m1cje.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.m1cje.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.m1cje.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/302\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1267,"href":"http:\/\/www.m1cje.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/302\/revisions\/1267"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.m1cje.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.m1cje.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.m1cje.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.m1cje.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.m1cje.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/img_5a82ca50b30a5.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nBlack Mountain Log<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.m1cje.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/img_5a82ca1b32f29.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nJourney Details<\/h3>\n
Walking Route Summary<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.m1cje.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/img_5a82cad544bed.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nGW\/SW-011 Sugarloaf<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.m1cje.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/img_5a82cf237268d-176x300-1.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.m1cje.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/IMG_5051-150x150-1.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nSugarload Log<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.m1cje.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/img_5a82cfde20c97.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nJourney Details<\/h3>\n
Walking Route Summary<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.m1cje.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/img_5a82d0ff977ba.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"