Hill of Wirren
First of 2025
It’s been a couple of weeks since I last went out, and with the holidays I didn’t get any other opportunities until the work and school cycle started again. I had a few errands to do, I was visiting some kittens! in St. Cyrus in the morning, plus we were leaving after school to travel for a wedding, so my timing was very restricted. When I was planning the trip, I didn’t think I had time, or at best I’d only be back just in time. I managed to tear myself away from the kittens at 11am, and decided to go for it. I was worried the road to the start of the summit would be snowy or icy, but the snow wasn’t too bad down in Angus compared to Aberdeen.
There are a couple of routes up Hill of Wirren, and I’d picked the shortest from the entrance to Auchowrie farm. I also wanted to go straight up vs. the route north and around the ridge. There’s a quad track the whole way up, even where the map says the track stops, it’s still there. The route starts off as the road up to the farm, and whilst you could walk through the farm to join the track, it felt a little rude to do so, and so I went up to the mobile phone mast, crossed the gate and then rejoined the track.
The snow was patchy most of the way up until around 500 or 550m, and then it was more consistent. Most of the 450-odd meter ascent was a consistent straight up, and the gradient didn’t let up until you reached the top plateau. The wind was fairly light but when it did blow it was cold, and the air temperature was probably near freezing.
It took me around an hour to get to the top, which does have a large activation zone, and I started calling on 2m as I closed in on the trig. I had three quick QSOs from Edinburgh and Aberdeen and with the wind, cold and time pressure I started to hope for a fourth to qualify the summit and head back down. After a few CQs and no replies, I thought it was best to start setting up on HF. The trig point has a post next to it, although a frozen puddle next to it, which looks boggy during warmer seasons. I was going to just setup on the trig, with the trig hole for the mast but by the time I’d unraveled the antenna, I had a QSO with Chris, 2M0RVZ, north of Aberdeen. So with my four, I packed up and headed down.
I was down quickly, although not as quick as if I’d brought a sledge! It was fun to run down the snow whilst it was still deep, but once it thinned out, it was a little slippy. I made it home in plenty of time and finished all my jobs.
