So this was kind of a spur of the moment trip for me, but someone commented that there was a drive up summit in Utah that I could snag on my way to meeting my buddies KC5CW (Curtis) and KD5ZZK (Andrew) for the Colorado Ham14er event (first weekend in August). The goal here was 40 points on the weekend, a bunch of 2-fers etc. Although I learned on this trip WHY I love living in California despite how beautiful Colorado is!
Driving US 50 west of Fallon is always a trip. You will either love it or hate it; I actually do quite love it. HWY 50 was what Golden Earring had when they wrote Radar Love (and probably Twilight zone too ;-)). (yes I know they are Dutch). IF ever there was a place to get abducted by aliens this is the place to do it.
Anyway, back on track, so I left Tahoe on Wednesday midday and headed East with W7U/SU-014 (Abajo Peak) as my first destination. After about 13 hours of driving, I needed to pull off, so found a place I could sleep in the truck and be sort of noise free. Oddly enough that was harder said then done, but I was about an hour from the summit when all said and done. Next morning, snagged some breakfast off the back of the truck and then proceeded south to the peak. This was the first time I’ve ever dealt w/ a drive up and sure enough this was a drive up. My goal originally was to get Abajo AND also South Peak which you drive past on the way to the peak. Abajo really is a drive up.
The clouds were moving in, and I finished my activation and rolled down to a pass that put me about 1.5 to 2 miles from South Peak (W7U/SJ-003).
About 10 minutes from the summit the rain drops started and the thunder got intense, so around I turned and back to the truck I went.
One thing is I came up with what I think is a social media phrase. “Truckie” Instead of Selfies, I take Truckies!
So sort of half defeated I rolled down the hill bummed that I was not going to have a 40 point weekend, but 30 points is still good, and it was time to start moving over towards Lake City Colorado to meet up with Andrew and Curtis. The plan for Ham14er was to do W0C/RG-002 (Redcloud Peak) and W0C/RG-004 (Sunshine Peak). The two summits sit about 2 miles apart on the same spine to each other and look to be an easy double peak bag to get. The drive over from Monticello was amazing, all those gnarly knify mountains etc. I was amazed at the fact that in Colorado an 8000 foot peak is a 1 point SOTA summit :D. I really need to do some more W0C it seems. Met up with Andrew in Lake City and out to the trail head we drove in order to setup camp, and have our spot setup. Curtis would be meeting us on Friday. I decided to do some exploratory hiking, ran into a mtn biker poacher riding down a trail he should not have been on. Whatever, should’ve body checked him. As a mountain biker it pisses me off that others would be selfish and ruin it for all of us. (but yah poaching has been a thing for a while now), and well, another set of storms rolled in that afternoon. Remember me saying why I like hiking in California? For the most part we never have rain in the Sierras and such. Seems like this time of year is monsoon season in Colorado..those afternoon hour long storms can definitely mess with you.
So that Saturday Andrew woke up at 1am and got started at 130, I woke up between 330-400 with Curtis and then we started up around 0500. I actually could have slept in another hour, but more on that in a second. So started just at first light, and I was making pretty good time. Ended up getting on the summit at 0800 which was apparently too early for really being part of the Ham14er. While I did get contacts from Curtis and Andrew elsewhere on the hill I did not actually start hearing other Colorado activators till I was headed off the hill 90 minutes later. I did get a couple S2S contacts that were elsewhere in the country. It was nice being a little further east. I was able to manage contacts with the Eastern Seaboard states. Ended up with 14 QSO on Redcloud and was starting to get hypothermic sitting on top. I should have put my puffy pants on. So as you can see from the images there were clouds all around. Given the experience of the past few days (and rain) I opted to head down instead of going after Sunshine Peak. So again, did not get the full 20, but that is okay. I rolled down and managed to snag a quick nap in time to hear Curtis when he was activating RedCloud so I did manage a SOTA Complete same day as activation :D.
So in contrast to California 14ers we only have one that is “drive up” as it were and that is White Mountain (W6/CD-001) which I hiked last year. That was a “drive to 11k and hike 6-7 miles each way” day hike. Not very drive up :D, but camping under the stars at 11k is pretty bad ass. Pretty much all California 14ers require some level of overnight backpacking, base camping and in some cases class 5 climbing to achieve. MT Whitney (W6/SN-001) is 12 miles each way and starts at 6000 feet. Not to sound like a dick, but this was the easiest 14er I have ever done.
So for driving home on Sunday I opted to head over County road 4 to Silverton via the Alpine Scenic By way. Finally got to test that suspension out for real :D.
And on that note, I leave you with some parting shots from the drive up. I’ll be back next year (or maybe sooner) for some more Colorado/Ham14er action.
N6JFD's Sota Blog 