
Achieving SOTA Mountain Goat on Skiddaw (G/LD-004)
After six years of trying to climb everything within my reach, I’ve finally done it. I achieved SOTA Mountain Goat status.
In September we visited the Lake District for a holiday (before lockdown 2) and as usual did a lot of walking up to the various peaks in this region. I had four days to activate the 6 summits needed to make Mountain Goat in 2020. It’s not been a great year for SOTA, due to the COVID-19 lockdown across the world, but here I had a small window of possibility.
Driving up to Lake District I had 941 activator points, so me and my wife knew we’d have a lot of walking and multi-day summits to get the remaining 59 points and tip the scales in my favor. But, after reviewing some walking routes passing multiple summits in a day, we worked out it was possible, but still a good challenge.
Here’s my activator log over 5 days (including 1 rest day – enforced, very strong winds and rain!):
Date | Summit | Summit Points | Total Points |
19/09/2020 | G/LD-007 (Fairfield) | 8 | 949 |
19/09/2020 | G/LD-010 (St Sunday Crag) | 8 | 957 |
19/09/2020 | G/LD-022 (Seat Sandal) | 6 | 963 |
20/09/2020 | G/LD-009 (Grasmoor) | 8 | 971 |
20/09/2020 | G/LD-015 (Grisedale Pike) | 6 | 977 |
21/09/2020 | G/LD-006 (Pillar) | 8 | 985 |
21/09/2020 | G/LD-014 (Kirk Fell) | 8 | 993 |
23/09/2020 | G/LD-004 (Skiddaw) | 10 | 1003 |
As you can see my final summit was Skiddaw (G/LD-004, 10 points, 931m), the conditions were predictably awful (it usually is up there!), but it was a fun activation, with plenty of chasers calling in to congratulate me passing the milestone.
Here are some statistics about my road to mountain goat:
- 6 years taken
- 243 SOTA activations
- 143 unique SOTA summits activated
- 3,504 QSOs (thanks to the many chasers!)
- Summits activated in:
- 6 countries
- 10 SOTA associations
- 3 continents

SOTA Mountain Goat trophy – hand carved in the Scottish Highlands!
I’ve had a lot of fun with SOTA over the past few years, it’s taken me to some crazy places which I wouldn’t have otherwise visited and has seen me operate in some conditions where you start to really question your sanity.
So what next? I don’t plan on stopping SOTA just because I’ve achieved Mountain Goat, there’s still so many summits left to activate. Some initial ideas include:
- Achieve 1,000 activator points using VHF alone
- Achieve 1,000 activator points through unique summits alone
- Achieve 1,000 chaser points to get my Shack Sloth award (222 points to go)
- Activate all English SOTA summits
Thanks to all the blog readers who have followed my SOTA (mis)adventures over the years and supported my endeavors. I do intend to continue blogging about the more interesting activations, so stay tuned!
Well done James… a great achievement..
but you do need GU/GU002 (& 001)
It’s a tricky one… I could drive you there… ha ha ha
https://summits.sota.org.uk/region/GU/GU
all the best mucker…
Thanks Adam! Yes, those mighty summits are still on my list. I’ll let you know when I come to GU land!
73 James M0JCQ
Fantastic achievement James.
Well done.
Dave G7ABT
Thanks Dave, appreciated!
Congratulations; your blog too is inspiring.
Oh2euu
Thanks Pete!
Congratulations James! And thanks for the very interesting blog (plus the YouTube videos), I really enjoy that. Besides being active as a SOTA activator, too 😉
Thomas DB4LL
Thanks Thomas, I hope to catch you on the air for a Summit to Summit at some point!
73 James M0JCQ
Absolutely fantastic! Well done. Have a great Xmas break.
73, Tom, M7MCQ
Well done James, a great accomplishment! Nice to get you summit to summit on the big day too.
Thanks Richard – to my shame that was the last SOTA activation I did. Good going on your recent winter activations in the LD!
73 James M0JCQ
Good going OM! Here’s to many, many more summits.
[lifts whisky glass while pressing “Post Comment”]
Thanks Rob!