Hiking – N6JFD's Sota Blog

West Highland Way (SOTA Edition)

So WAY back in 2019 I had planned to hike the West Highland Way in spring of 2020 and sprinkle in some Summits on the Air as well. I think we know what happened to that though. Since I was working a pretty good job at the time I had booked a a combination of some wild camping and pretty posh stays, and at the beginning of pandemic all but one of those places had agreed to refund the bookings. The Bridge of Orchy hotel was the one place that would not do a full refund and 2022 was the last year they were willing to push the stay back (kind of a “use it or lose it” thing). So with that in mind I put a date kind of in the middle of the end of September and took my original plan to build forward and backwards.

For those that do not know the WHW is about 100 miles long starts in the suburbs of Glasgow, walks north along Loch Lomond and then heads up into the Scottish Highlands, most people take 5-7 days to do, and if I were just doing the trail that would have been a fair assessment for me too, but I was also bagging munros to play radio. So my plan called for about 11-12 days (12 days if I had opted for a side trip up into the Mamores range to circle around and come across the CMD Arete to finish on Ben Nevis before descending into Fort William.

Day 1: Milngavie to Drymen (Camping): 17 – Sept

Woke up at the Hostel in Glasgow and hit the train early. I needed to be at the train station in Milngavie (pronounced “Mull-Guy”) to leave my extra clothes/luggage with AMS. They were going to hold and deliver to Fort William on the 28th. Once that was all sorted, I worked my way to the marker that is the start of the WHW. There were already a few groups of people amassing the area as they were getting their pictures in front of the obelisk. I grabbed some breakfast, and a last coffee at the nearby Costa, and hit the trail.

Walking the first bit is sort of urban, but is not unlike some walking I had recently done in Wales. It is quiet, it is a nice urban path, but in the trees and quiet none-the-less. Keep in mind, this was the suburbs of Glasgow and not in the city centre, so that did help with the quiet factor. You experience what you might normally see at a local town park, the trail runners, the dog walkers (lots of fun dogs to say hello to this morning) and the occasional mountain biker. This is definitely the beginning of the hike though, everyone is clean, everyone is fresh and ready to hit the trail. Within an hour though you are finally getting out of town, and starting to get into some of the more rural areas. Once you get out of town, you really start to experience some strange and interesting stuff, here was a lost hiker that never seemed to get past this one location.

About an hour before Glengoyne (more on that later) I came across a familar name, the “John Muir Way”. Wow so I have now walked the entire John Muir in California, parts of it in Tennessee and now parts of it in Scotland. Even cooler that the West Highland way is considered part of the “International Appalachian Trail”.

A few hours out of town I made it to a distillery that is just off the Way called “Glengoyne”. Keep in mind I knew this distillery was there, and I have been there before, so I headed on up because it was time to refill the water bottle with some of their natural spring water and I wanted to pick up a little nippy bottle for the end of the trail. I scored this 7.5cl of 18yo scotch, found a good place to carry it so it would not break and headed on. A bit further I started to find some of the honesty boxes, this is the one part of the trail where cash is still required. So far tap and pay (thank you Covid?) has done well, but those honesty boxes do need some cash. Good news is I did bring some along because an Ice Cream was definitely sounding good at this time of the day. The last couple of miles of day one was along a roadway. It was kind of funny as I was swallowed up by a large guided group of folks who were doing the full luggage transfer, carry a light day pack of snacks and water method. Nothing wrong with that, but this groups’ guides had definitely let the group get VERY spread out. As I was walking into the driveway for Drymen Camping one of those hikers thought I was her guide and asked me “how much further till we stop for lunch, I’m tired and hungry”. Well funny enough I had been listening to their guides a while back saying they were going to do lunch up in Drymen. “Oh well I am stopping here but it sounds like ya’ll are eating lunch about a miile further up the road”. It sounds like that group was doing a full 20 miler all the way to Balmaha for day one. Ouch, I was perfectly happy doing my 12-13 miles and just strolling into a relaxing evening camping.

Drymen camping was a nice place, the gentleman (family?) that runs the place had expanded to support larger tents as a result of Covid so on top of the small spots (which was a bunch of us in 1 and 2p tents) up above were some of the big 6-8 people tents as well as some campervans and overland rigs. I do respect the love of campervanning (#vanlife in the US) that the UK folks do. Something I would experience a lot over the days to come.

Day 2: Drymen over Conic Hill to Rowardennan 18-Sept

I wanted an early start because today was going to be a SOTA day with my first taste of combining some decent miles, a hill climb AND an activation. I was also looking forward to finally breaking in my new SotaBeams carbon 6. After having some almost not-activations in Wales I reached out to SotaBeams when in Keswick to get a Carbon 6 ordered and delivered to Glasgow before hitting the walk. I pounded some breakfast (while there are very few bag/dehydrated meals I like in the US, I really became a fan of Adventure Food’s breakfast and veggie meals. Their Knusper Meusli is probably my favorite breakfast and you can have it warm or hot. Anyway I was on the trail I think before most people were even up, but I wanted to be on top of Conic Hill by 10am for my activation to ensure I had time to get down to Balmaha for lunch and make the Rowardennan Youth Hostel with plenty of time to chill that evening.

Once I got past Drymen and was getting further into the Trossachs, the environment around me was really starting to change and turn more green. Plus I was staring to get into some easy climbing. That said I was also encountering more sheep/cow/range lands. Plenty of forest lands were encountered too. The final push up Conic Hill was not as hard as I was thinking, but the walking in Wales and the Lakes did have me ready for almost anything :D. At first I was thinking I could just run this activation on 2m, but I really wanted to break in my new mast, so I broke out the MTR2 (Thank you N6IZ, another story for another time, but I normally use an MTR3b_LCD) and setup in a way to not interfere with the ever grown crowds on the summit. I even drew the interest of some drone pilots who were not sure what was going on with my wire and tall mast.

After an hour I managed 13 contacts between 2m, 20m and 40m, but was ready to head down into Balmaha as it was getting crowded on top.

The walk to Rowardennan was pretty uneventful, still playing with both an (sub)urban interface, and getting into the hills while also walking along the Southern end of Loch Lomond. I swear though that it smelled very sea like at this end of the Loch.

So once at the Rowardennan area I do want to make a comment about “The Clansmen”. As a walker you want to get there no later than 6pm. They only want to cater to the clients in the hotel they are attached to. I was able to get in and get some food there, and there was a nice view for sunset, but yah get their early, call ahead or just know that the Youth Hostel (if that is where you are staying ) does serve dinner, or just be ready to have your own food. I was not ready to break into my other camp meals yet so I opted for an early dinner at the Clansmen. The views from the Youth Hostel are quite nice as well!

Day 3: Ben Lomond (SOTA day) 19-Sept

So, this could technically be considered a “zero day” since I was not moving forward, however I was doing a day dedicated to just SOTA. Today my goal was Ben Lomond. Another early start was the plan, had a decent breakfast at the YHA and then headed back the 1/2 mile to the trailhead for Ben Lomond. Walking up was a bit of a dreary morning, not that crazy “Scotland rain” I had heard so much about, but dreary none-the-less. Not that I could see them the crowds ahead of me, but once I made it above treeline, the fog was making the visibility “shite”, and I could tell there was a decent amount of folks ont he trail ahead of me. This was my first (second actually) taste of Scottish munro walking; lots of stone steps, straight up, no meandering, just pitter patter, lets get at ‘er. I went ahead and setup just off the summit area, but still at the top block (something that would be a mistake as the day went on). This was another very successful activation though netting 29 contacts on 20/40 on the MTR2 and I even broke out the QCX mini (17m) for a few contacts including one VE (North American) QSO. It was worth it do the extra band for sure. As I went past noon, I noticed the crowd on the summit was actually quite big AND the winds were threatening to knock my makeshift mast supports down, so after 90 minutes of activation time I decommissioned the setup and walked back down the hill. Oh btw, did I mention today was the day of the Queen’s funeral? It was a bank holiday for everyone in the UK, so as a result all the non-royalists(?) from the area decided okay, lets go walk a hill. I was definitely swimming downstream as a million of my not-so-closest friends were heading up to the summit. All in all a great “zero-day” to do some Summits on the Air and get some hill walking in as the day did turn out to be quite sunny and enjoyable.

That evening at dinner I ended up eating with a couple of gentlemen who were also staying in my bunk room at the YH, Roy and his brother Tom from the Bay Area (California). They were both retired and were off on one of their annual adventures together. It was an fun/odd mix because while I was having some big days here and there my zero days would allow the three of us to keep bumping into each other as time went on.

Day 4: Rowardennan to Crianlarich: 20-Sept

Day four was going to be my biggest day of the trip and I was a little nervous. To be fair I did have a strange 18 mile day in Wales but today was going to be a 20+ mile day overall.

Hit up one last breakfast at the YH and then hit the trail. There is a side trail that takes you directly up from the hostel to the WHW, so no real backtracking. The walk here up until the Inversnaid Hotel is along Loch Lomond, and is quite pretty. I was unable to get a good picture of the Inversnaid falls, but it is pretty impressive. that I can say. It is worth it to grab a snack (second breakfast) and top off your water because from here the fun really begins. Note that shortly after the Inversnaid hotel you have an option; a high route and a low route. The high route is pretty much a doubletrack forest road. The low route (so I have read and was told by folks) is this crazy almost rock climbing up and down affair that runs along Loch Lomond. As noted I had read how rough it was so I, and this other couple I bumped into decided to take the high route. The high route reminded me a lot of walking through some of the coastal areas of Oregon, very rainforest like. The trail does drop to lake level the last few miles of Loch Lomond and it in some ways reminded me of the West Coast Trail up in British Columbia. Off camber ladders, crazy bridges, and some rock scrambling. I made it to Beinglas farm around 2pm and was not really wanting to wait for them to open up at 3pm, so I opted to head on. I had read earlier in the day while walking that Beinglas’ lease was not being renewed next year so what seems to have been a staple for campers and hikers wanting a mid day treat was probably going to be no more (or at least a new/different form) in the years to come. Beware the Willy Wonky Hobbit tunnel that goes under the ScotRail line. It starts out okay for average height folks, but starts to get shorter in the middle and by the end you are bear/crab/crouch/duck walking to get to the end :D. From here on out the trail runs through a farm land with plenty of sheep, but looks East over the valley that is past Crianlarich. I had booked the YHA in Crianlarich (I really do like the YH’s) but this one I can tell was not going to meet the standards that Rowardennan had set.. The room was nice enough but there was mold on the ceiling, and they were starting to run short on things. The Rod and Reel restaurant is really good, I ate there both nights and enjoyed both meals, even had the Steak Pie on the second night (I’m normally a vegetarian but lets just say that the food in EU is so much better than the US that meat made it’s way back into my diet :D).

Day 5: Ben More and Stob Binnein

So, I am just going to set this out now and say this is maybe the 3rd hardest day of hiking ever and my second hardest SOTA day ever. Mt Dubois (W6/WH-001) will probably always be my hardest SOTA day but this day was a very close second. My round trip mileage from Crianlarich was just shy of 13 miles. Four miles was the walk to/from the Ben More Trailhead and Crianlarich.

Once you actually get to the Trailhead, that is when the real fun starts. (see below) The first 2000 feet of elevation gain is pretty much stone steps that are on a steep grade, steep enough that looking down the steps gave me a bit of vertigo. It was a typical weather day this day. The last 500 feet of elevation was in the clouds, and there was no visibility. Given the wonky weather (pretty windy and misty) I decided to go for a VHF only approach. I was also still far enough South that Glasgow was in reach. Both summits did qualify on VHF. The hike down the backside and then back up to Stob Binnein was more of the same, steep down and steep up. The REAL fun of this hike was for the downroute back to the road. No I did not go back over Ben More but followed the goat/sheep trail that is on the Western slope all the way down. The stairs would have been easier :D. The total down route from the col in the middle took me about as long as both up routes. Given the moldy ceilings on the YHA, once I did get back to town I marched straight to the Best Western and booked a nicer room for the night. However I did take advantage of the laundry at the YHA before pulling all my stuff out and relocating. Again another night at the Rod and Reel for some good beers and the Steak Pie I spoke about above.

Day 6: Crianlarich to Tyndrum

Today was supposed to be a walk to Tyndrum with a SOTA peak, but I was still pretty beat from the 20 mile day plus the 4600 feet 13 mile double SOTA day. Today was just a good 7 mile jaunt with a history lesson and some cool valleys along the way as we just start getting further into the Highlands. Once you make it Tyndrum the Green Welly is a great place to restock. I will note that Tyndrum is at some sort of crossroads as it is a pretty busy town. The walk in is pleasant enough as you walk along the stream (Crom Allt). Not that Tyndrum is anything more than a small town, but it is a slight contrast to the villages of the past few nights, as it was quite a busy town. There are a couple of big hotels, quite a few campgrounds and there is still the iconic/idyllic old world style inns too. There are a couple of wild camping spots between “By the Way” and crossing the A road that goes through Tyndrum. I took todays extra free time to snag a massage (she is reachable on WhatsApp), do a little restocking and just relax before pushing on the next leg of the trip.

Day 7: Tyndrum to Bridge of Orchy and Beinn Dorain (Hike and SOTA day)

All rested up and ready to move on, I grab an early breakfast and hit the trail. Technically there are two options (depending on where you stay), walk right through town, or just head out towards the “By the Way” campsite and pickup the trail. Here the trail starts getting more remote and into the Highlands. The valleys are surrounded by larger hills. I was only going about 7 miles to Bridge of Orchy Hotel (the one that prompted me to run this trip this fall). So, you follow the A82 road a bit but then head out into farm country, and the scenery is beautiful at this rate. I cannot remember the name of the lodging along the way but right before the Kinglass River is a neat little camp site way out in the country. They have a store and depending on the time of day you walk through there second breakfast or lunch is an option. So I made the Hotel around 11am and took this opportunity to offload about half my weight to scale down to just what I needed for heading up and doing some SOTA. This was another one of those straight up trails, although I use the phrase “trail” loosely. Depending on how early you head up, or how late you want to stay up it is possible to get two activations. I went after Beinn Dorain but as noted given enough time (or the desire to come down later) then CS-025 would add about an hour of walking overall (plus the activaiton time). If I had stayed an extra day in Bridge of Orchy the two-fer would have been worth it.

The activation was going well, I qualified the with the MTR2 and some VHF action, but something was itching me to break out the QCX mini today. I netted 12 contacts just on the QCX mini over a 40 minute window including TM2SOTA. Most of the contacts were to the southern end of the EU continent including Spain, Italy and even Ukraine. I took my sweet time with the QCX since I was not going after the second summit. Overall a fun activation.

Day 8: Bridge of Orchy to Glencoe Mountain Resort 24-Sept

Another short day, only 11 miles and no SOTA. The point of today was to just get to Glencoe Mountain Resort which is across from Kingshouse Inn. Today was the first real autumal day of the year. The air was crisp, the temperature was pleasant, the sun was shining and there were some clouds in the area. A joyous breeze. Inveroran is just over the hill from Bridge of Orchy and offers a quick refreshment, a short ways along the country road and the Way heads over a bridge and heads up the old Drovers road. Not sure how I missed this peak when I was doing my planning but a few miles from GMR is yet another peak I cannot pronounce Stob a’Choire Odhair. This 6 pointer is accessible directly from the West Highland Way. I almost went after this peak, but for some reason just kept enjoying the saunter along the beautiful day. GMR was a two day stop over with the goal of two Summits. A few shots of just how inspiring this area was (at least for me). No roads, mountains, and walking an old Drover’s road.

Day 9: Meall a’Bhuiridh (SOTA Day) 25-Sept

SOTA day with the goal of two peaks Meall a’Bhuiridh and Criese. The goal was to head up the lift to get a little head start on the walk head over the col and scale up what (on a topo map) looked like a probably a hard class 3 or maybe an easy class 4 to the next ridge line. Mother Nature had something else in mind. A storm system was moving in and the winds were already starting to rip. Rain was also coming down sideways :D. The winds were such that one side of my body was completely wet while the other side was dry. With that in mind and the wx turning quickly I opted to go ahead and just work Meall a’Bhuiridh instead. That was a smart move as I only mustered one VHF QSO, so I did find a place where the winds were not going to rip up my mast and worked this peak with 17m. I managed 7 QSOs in 15 minutes, tore the setup down quickly and started my way down the peak the way I came up with the winds now howling. On the way down the winds were ripping hard enough to blow me off my feet on one occasion. Strong enough to actually throw me a couple of feet through the air. After some crab walking and lots of bracing I managed to get all the way off the hill in one piece, but yet another epic day on this fun little adventure! By the time I was back down to GMR the winds were ripping and the rain was sheeting hard so I opted to move into one of the little hobbit huts and dry everything out.

Day 10: GMR to wild camping 26-Sept

So, after having finished a few good sota peaks and realizing it had been a few years since I finished a named long trail (as opposed to multi-day segments of long trails) I shifted my focus now on the rest of the walk to Fort William (okay it is only two days away), so with a new day and the weather being pleasant again, no crazy Scottish weather the goal was to make Kinlochleven for lunch and then head up into the wild country to have one last night of wild camping. The Way follows the road for the first few miles and then turns up into the high country on a trail feature aptly named “the Devil’s Staircase”. I lifted this from the Internet as a history of the naming.

Between the 18th and 20th century, many people in Glen Coe have been believed to have been ‘claimed by the Devil.’ This is because many workers at the reservoir, after failing to return home after a winter’s night at the local pub, would have struggled the steep path of the route. This is why the nickname ‘Devil’s Staircase’ came about.

This part of the trail is very scenic, and does give you that Highland scenery that one hopes to see. For what it is worth this many days in heading up the Staircase was pretty easy, and for anyone else even on a weeklong itinerary this number of days in the jaunt up the stairs is not going to be that tough, so do not let the name scare you.

From here you descend down the valley into Kinlochleven over a couple of miles. The trail is nice walking so it should not take very long. You do need to get in before 1500 hours as that is when most shops do shut their kitchen for mid day break. I found a nice sandwich shop, and even enjoyed a milkshake with my lunch. Kinlochleven also hosts the local Ice Climbing centre. It might be worth a visit if you are staying in town or have the time.

My last campsite of the Way, a very pleasant night

After lunch in Kinlochleven I moved back to the trail and kept moving along into the backcountry with a specific location in mind. Here the trail does climb some out of town, and then chills to a gradual ascent. I found a flat creek amd trailside setup in a great location that was somewhat wind protected, however IF I had kept going another mile I would have been able to pitch behind a rock wall from an abandoned shepherd’s hill home.

Dinner was pleasant, however I finally came to the realization that it is time to finally retire my snowpeak gigapower (it took 30 minutes to boil 1.5L of water, and no I am not getting a Jetboil. Time for an MSR Pocket Rocket). The sunset and surrounding views for the evening were amazing. Being though in livestock grazing land I found it humourous all night cows on both sides of the hill were constantly mooing back and forth to each other. Not enough to keep one awake, but those couple of times I did wake up for a bathroom break I could still hear them wailing away and their bells clanging.

Day 11: Wild Camping to Fort William (~14 miles) 27 – Sept

Last day of the walk, another great day in the Highlands. I had no real schedule and did not need to be anywhere, so I was not in too much of a hurry to get moving, however by 9am plenty of walkers were already moving past me. I am curious when these folks left whereever they started from. If they left Kinlochleven it must have been around 7am as I was two hours past the village. Anyway, with a fresh batch of individuals to walk with I proceeded along the last bit of the Way, but not in too much of a hurry. I wanted to soak up these last few miles of Highlands. So as I noted “yesterday” a mile or so past my camp I found what would have been a perfect place to hide from the winds (had their been any, fortunately last night only brought mild breezes).

The foundation of a pen would have made another good wind break stay out of the house though.

For the first bit of the morning we walked in the wide open valley with views West towards Glencoe and a reservoir or two. However the trail does eventually turn North and you start that last little climb past the Mamore range for the final few miles push into Glen Nevis. Right befote the final drop there is an old Iron Age fort that is worth the 20 minute side trip. If you read the information board, what you see, and what you read do make sense. Also from this high spot you can see Ben Nevis (on a clear day) to your North across the valley. Plus the view up the Valley as your nestled between the Mamores and Nevis range does help give you that small feeling that comes with being in the mountains. Once back on the trail it is all downhill to Glen Nevis and then pavement into Fort William! What a walk

The happy hiker sitting with the statue at the end in Fort William

Epilogue:

Tbis trip was well worth the wait, and is one of the few hikes I would love to do again, or at least consider going on past to also add the Great Glen Way. It is possible even without a luggage transfer service to put a posh trip together, but doing the combination of tent nights (4 total) a couple nights in the Hobbit Huts, the Youth Hostels and the two hotels was a new experience for me. However knowing what I know now, and skipping the SOTA factor a completely wild camping experience would be the plan. Trekking through the UK the past few weeks and specifically the WHW in the relaxed manner in which I did it was quite the enjoyable experience. The food here was tasty. The added two years also helped to improve the solar comditions to get those further daytime QSOs. I also have a new found fondness for the QCX mini. I had plenty of fun with it in Tahoe, but hearing all those Balkan and Southern European stations blasting in was a nice new change, the couple of times I did get a NA QSO also made that particular activation more fun.

See you next time!

A bit of Fall in the Sierra (or summer?)

Decided to do an overnight for two peaks in the Sierra

Disclaimer: The two peaks I am going to talk about here do require some offtrail/overland navigation skills, and have some high consequence results if something goes wrong. This is a trip report of my experience, and is in no way beta for you to go and tackle these peaks. If you take this data and get hurt, or your loved ones get hurt that is on you period..FWIW I did cut up my hand pretty good on a fall I had while descending Lightning Mountain. In both cases these peaks are thin spine rock piles; one being a large pile of talus and boulders, the other is decomposing volcanic material. Also note these approaches are steep, think avalanche terrain steep. The approach to Disaster Peak was in the Donnell Fire zone from 2018, there is a lot of fire damage along the way including sink holes forming from burnt out tree root systems. Sink holes that could give out and definitely put a damper on your day if you fell in. I had NO cell service from either peak at all, and I was not getting any APRS beacons until I was up high enough to hit something to my west. That said, enjoy the read!

So I have this map of SOTA summits between Carson Pass (HWY 88) and technically the Northern border of Yosemite, but HWY 108/Sonora Pass for all intent and purpose that I have been working off of primarily the past two years. The area I have primarily focussed on this year is along the PCT corridor South of HWY 4. So far this year I had hit up Bloods Ridge, Antelope Peak, Mineral Mountain, Deadwood and a couple of numbered peaks in the area. I also missed 5-6 weeks of hiking in Sept/Oct because of a knee injury sustained doing Tinkers Knob/Mt Lincoln. Funny too, that was probably the easiest hike I had done to that point this summer. Here we are in mid Nov though and my knee was feeling good again five weeks after a meniscectomy, the weather is still plenty warm, there is plenty of sunshine, and the last remnants of any early season storms from back in September were long gone. The only signs of snow were left over patches from the previous long Winter season. So LETS HIT THE TRAIL and get a nice fall overnight in!

A new sign put up after the Donnell Fire in 2018

I have had my eye on three particular peaks that are all in close proximity, and oddly enough two of them are accessed on the same trail (but from a different direction) as my approach to Arnot peak, specifically the Disaster Creek Trail. The two in question for this trip are Lightning Mountain, and Disaster Peak. The third peak I will have to go after some other time. Compared to some of the other peaks I had done around this area these two peaks were right off a trail, and the on vs off trail ratio would be about 50/50 for once. For context, Antelope Peak was a 15 mile day for me, only 2 miles were on trail, rest of the time I was picking my way across open fields, manzanita and willow thickets and whatever else the mountain could throw my way. This area is the Carson Iceberg Wilderness area and overnights do require a permit. As a day trip (and this is totally doable as a long single day two-fer) no permit needed. The Trailhead is off of Stanislaus FS Road 7N83.

I started heading up the Disaster Creek trail at 8am, and the walking was pretty easy. In 2018 the Donnell fire ravaged some of this area pretty bad, there are plenty of large trees that have fallen as a result and even more on the verge of falling. I stopped at what I think was a Jeffery Pine to count the rings, and made it to 100 but was only 2/3 of the way across, and was easily a 10 foot diameter tree. I’d noticed some recent tracks along the trail, some that looked real recent, but the cattle grazers had already pulled out for the year, and I could tell I was going to be totally alone in the wilderness this weekend =).

Strange location for a fire ring. Not near any trail

Once I had my basecamp setup I started looking for a way up, and wouldn’t you know there was an animal use trail right behind my camp, so up I went along a shoulder that I had planned as my approach for Lightning Mountain. The approach was approximately 1500 feet and was 3 miles each way. I was in the trees until 8500 feet. Oddly enough along the way I found a fire ring in the strangest place ever at 8300 feet. No real trail, not very flat but someone had spent some time here. After this weekend I actually wondered if the owners stay with the cattle most of the summer.

Top of Lightning, looking south from whence i came. Yosemite is down there somewhere

The last few hundred feet is where the pucker factor starts, but not for the full duration. Depending on which shoulder you ascend, you come to a crumbly rocky knob that has bad consequences on one side and devastating consequences on the other. Choose your route, be choosy with your footing and proceed. For the next little bit you just kinda traverse over to the saddle at the base of the rock structure that makes up the summit. The summit is long and spiny, and a little bit of class 2/3 that is crumbly and slidy so again, be careful, and be choosy and test before you weight your foot placement.

There is no cell service (or AT&T) on this peak, so I was relying on APRS to handle my spotting. Back in the summer ON6ZQ did some fun hackery to put all SOTA activators on aprs.fi, and low and behold because I was hitting the summit, a welcome message appeared on APRS. :D. I could hear some guy squawking away on another summit up in North Lake Tahoe area, so I waited 20 minutes to get a QSO with him. Kind of a mistake since he was not actually doing SOTA, but it was at least my first QSO for the first activation on this peak. Overall today I ended up with 1 2m contact 7 on 40m with an S2S, and 4 on 20m. After about 2 hours on the summit, decided it was time to head down mostly retracing my steps. Back at that dicey knob, I did end up losing my footing in one spot, but not on the steeper section, but because the rock was all crumbly and such I did manage to tear up my hand some.

Sunset where I camped. I picked a high perch to have some views.

Camp was camp, nothing to speak of here, but I did have a nice sunset glow (I am looking East in the photo I posted above).

Next morning my plan was simple, get up, break down camp and go find the trail to Disaster Peak; todays peak would be ~2350 feet of gain and another 3 miles each way. I would leave my pack at the bottom, and normally I would say this is probably not a good idea, and I’ll admit there were a few times I was like “damn, hope there are no bears today down in the valley”, but it is what I did. I wonder if the scent of used TP in a ziplock would ward animals away from my pack 😉 (pack it in, pack it out). Reality is I did not bother bringing any extra food on this trip, so I’d eaten my allotment already. Once I found the use trail to Disaster peak (more on that in a minute), found a somewhat hidden place under a tree to park my pack, grabbed my Z-lite sit pad and the case I use to carry my MTR clipped it to my belt, killed a liter of water and went on. (yes, I set off for a 6 mile hike on a hot summer, I mean fall day with no water).

The nice thing about the setup I have, is it weighs < 2lbs. Super easy to just carabiner to a belt loop. I have a trapped EFHW made with 30awg silicon wrapped wire that a buddy built. This thing is LIGHT, the MTR3b, and my 1400mah battery which I am running an experiment on to see just how many operating hours I can get out of it. The battery may be the heaviest part of the kit

So, I mentioned “use trail” before, what i had read was a hard to follow use trail was only partially true, and this was a trip report from well before last years fire. The trail once I did find it was actually a well used pathway that was easy to follow, plus had its fair share of cairns along the way. That was until I got about half way and walked into one of the areas that was damaged pretty bad by the fire. I had never seen the results of a fire that burned so hot it burned out the root system of a tree, but here you go:

You definitely had to be careful because those roots ended up being sink holes, and if you were not aware of where you were stepping it would be easy to cause a sink hole to happen and you would be done hiking for the day. Once past the burn area, you just round a shoulder/corner, and it does get a bit exposed for a minute or two, but you round a corner and your destination is there in full view. At this rate, just work your way up the hill as best you can. In some cases there are some cattle trail, and it does look like if you attain the Southern shoulder the jaunt along that shoulder to the peak is a much easier ascent then straight up the gut. I also saw plenty of camps/fire rings in some more strange places, nothing like what I saw the day before, but strange enough..

On the summit, it was your typical activation, since I was further East on this summit no one could hear me in the central valley, I did pick up someone out in Yerington NV though. Also managed another 11 HF contacts on CW, more 20m today then 40m, so another successful activation of a virgin peak.

Takeaways: Always enamored by the fact that I have studied this area extensively on the maps, and you think it is all spread out, but it is not. I drove some 200+ miles to ultimately access two peaks that were 35 miles crowfly from my home.

Do the cattle grazers stay in the field all season, and where can I sign up for that gig without going out and buying a bunch of cows? 😀 (and does it pay as well as my current job?)

See you on the next one, 73 de N6JFD/p

Herlan Peak (W7N/WC-008) 3/30/19

SOTA Activation of a peak I’d been eyeing for a while

So for those that have been following me in anyway know I’ve had a desire to knock off all the peaks that are in some proximity to the Tahoe Rim Trail. This was also the final weekend of the W7N bonus weekend (W6 cuts out on 3/15, that is in the process of getting updated though). There are three possible ways to get to this peak, and as a day hike, all are kind of ambitious. Doing this when there is still a good amount of snow on the ground amps up that factor more.

So the three possible ways to access this peak are from Tahoe Meadows on the Mt Rose hwy, Spooner summit to the South of US-50. Both of these are primarily the Tahoe Rim Trail. I chose to use the Flume Trail/Tunnel Creek route to go up, then hop over towards Twin Lakes. According to my CalTopo route this should have been ~5.23 miles each way and 2722 feet elevation gain. Mt Rose to Herlan peak is ~10 miles each way and has a fair bit of up and down (+2050, -1830 elevation change). Not quite ready to drop a marathon on snowshoes since most of the stuff up high was fluffy and untracked. Half Marathon? No problem.

I have done my fair share of 10-15 mile snowshoe hikes, but the 2600 foot elevation gain was adding to the pucker factor some, fortunately DST and the Spring equinox has kicked in, so we’re already north of 12 hours of sunlight per day. I hit the trailhead approximately 9am and already started making shortcuts across the snow to decrease distance. I really do love snowshoeing when there is a good base, do not have to worry about damaging existing trails. Down low the snow was pretty firm, so I was making some good time. Funny though the higher I went the fewer snowshoe/shoe postholing tracks were present. About 2 miles up I was now breaking trail though on my own.

Even in the winter roads and trails still look obvious so navigating was pretty easy. When I reached the top of Tunnel Creek trail/the Saddle I opted to stay along the ridge instead of dropping down to Twin Lakes. So it was spring time, and not sure why I’d not considered this in my planning, but, I was starting to notice more and more bear tracks going between trees.

The uptrack ended up taking a bit longer then I’d hoped, especially since i was making good time earlier on, but off trail, and deep snow being what it is, it took me longer to go that last 1000 feet up then it did the first 1600. Even with the short cuts and such, I ended up doing just shy of 6 miles. I was not wandering around lost, I just think that the mapping software is not accounting for some of the switchbacks that existed. (My uptrack is posted below). If you are planning this route, anticipate 7-8 if you stick to the trail.

Once on top though, I was greeted with some amazing scenery.

from the summit towards South Lake. — Plenty of peaks off in the distance. The view from North Lake looking South (just my opinion) is so amazing. a lot of nooks and crannies you cannot see from the South looking North

One good thing about deep snow on the summit is uh..it’s easier to anchor that antenna mast..just shove it in, and step around it to pack the snow in.

So, I ended up with 20 QSO across 7SSB, 7CW, 10CW, and 14CW. With 4 S2S. 20m seemed to be pretty good today as some of my QSO were the Eastern seaboard. 30m/10mhz was a bit iffy, I’m wondering if I was close enough to Slide Mountain that I was picking up interference from all the transmitters over there (~5miles North crowfly).

I used my KX2 and my QRPguys Tri-band vertical, and as usual it performed well. That by far is my favorite setup.

The hike down I opted to overland navigate and stay on the Western side of the spine I ascended. I was also wishing for my splitboard as the snow was amazing up high, and would’ve made from some awesome cold blower powder turns. My shortcut worked out well, as i ended up cutting off a mile from my up track, and landed back on the Flume trail right where the signpost/tunnel creek turn off is.

After knocking off Herlan peak I now only have two left from the Rim Trail Challenge. Ellis Peak and Scott Peak both of which are easy and in proximity to each other so I may just knock them out as an overnight backpack this Summer. I just need to stop letting myself get distracted by all the other peaks (and travel) I want to do :D.

Thanks for stopping by. Some more images are below..

uptrack

Wonder where the wind blows from

Sign at the trailhead

Crazy wind depositing on the summit.

South towards Snow Valley Peak (that might be Marlette Peak actually).

SOTA down under! VK[2,4]/N6JFD/P

So this is my son’s last year in HS and in July he heads off to the Army, so we decided to go REAL BIG for our last “Ski Week” (Presidents Day/mid winter break) trip. Time to head down under to Australia. As usual we were not looking to hit the standard tourists sites, we were just going to go hang out, I would grab some SOTA, he would do some fishing etc. It also helps when a friend from my childhood was living somewhere in country.

I do not get impressed by man made things, humans will never make something as impressive as the (real) Matterhorn, or El Capitan, but here is the opera house

After walking around the Opera House we took a walk thru the Royal Botanical Gardens and then headed back to the airport for our domestic flight up to Ballina where we would setup our base camp for the week.

My plan was to knock out some Summits on the Air before really getting setup, but I wanted to get a place setup for staying, so we booked at the Reflections Holiday Park in Shaws Bay. The view was great I’ll say 😀

We headed up to a camp area near Mt Warning so that Jason and I could roll up the hill first thing in the morning. Mt Warning VK2/NR-001 is a sacred mountain and the climb up used to be a right of passage for one of the local native tribes. I was walking on hallowed ground, and I was reverent the whole way up. We hit the trail head around 5am, and started the 3.3 miles up. Everything I had read said this trail should take about 5 hours total to do. It took us 4:45 including me spending an hour on the summit doing SOTA. It is always fun getting that first QSO on a new summit/continent! I tossed out a CQ SOTA on 2m 146.500, and VK4IB came back to me from Brisbane. Well that pretty much helped me feel like this was going to be a successful activation. I kept calling CQ on 2 while setting up the KX2. Got my four contacts, closed down and down we hiked. The Feature image is the sunrise from the summit! Definitely heed the sign below.

After we got down, we checked out of our cabin and proceeded to the next summit on the list which was Springbrook Mountain VK4/SE-011 which is for all intent and purpose a drive up. What is funny is that it took us almost as long to drive here from Mt Warning as it took to hike up Mt Warning 😀 even though Warning and Springbrook are only separated by 13 miles/20km crowfly. I noticed that there were two ZS calls nearby also doing the VK thing on a nearby peak, so I S2S’d them. I really should have popped up to that peak too just for the complete :D. I think I helped them get the complete for Springbrook as well.

With some SOTA in the books we traveled on down to the coast coming in just south of Surfer City, checked out the Byron Bay lighthouse for sunset and stayed the night in Lennox Head. It was pretty cool seeing sunrise from a mountain where I could see the ocean, and then seeing the mountain I had climbed that morning from the ocean during sunset! Full Circle

Mt Warning is pretty much dead center under the clouds.

The next morning, Jeremiah and I did a coastal walk the 6 miles from Lennox Head back to Ballina, got setup in our cabin and fished, and chilled out. By Wednesday I was itching for some more SOTA, so Thursday morning I got up at 8am and headed to the airport to pick up a car and then headed inland towards Tenterfield. I had somewhere else in mind, but while at lunch I started looking for two more peaks close together, and there were two such peaks. One being VK2/NT-025 (Mount MacKenzie) (SotaDB has it as just NT-025). I ended up with 5 QSO overall with a mix of ZL and VK calls. After 50 minutes I figured, lets maybe squeeze in one more peak (which would have pushed me past GOAT). I headed over towards VK2/NT-033, and got pretty close until I found the “Please check in with management before venturing onto these lands”. I am not a fan of folks who trespass without permission, and I was not about to break my own rule, so I turned around and looked for another peak. There was a peak over in VK4/Queensland that looked like it would have a short hike, so I headed that way. (Norman Peak VK4/SD-002). Stymied again, this time a road closure due to the fires in the area. So here I sit 7 points away from Mountain Goat. Reality is, I was not really wanting to get GOAT outside of NA because I want to get GOAT with the chasers that have chased me the most so I was not that bummed that I did not get my two-fer today. Headed back to Ballina just in time to get caught in some TORRENTIAL downpours as a result of Cyclone Oma. Had a wonderful evening dinner with friends both new and old.

We were supposed to fly back down to Sydney midday Friday so we would have some time to relax, repack, and maybe catch a few more gardens in Sydney however Oma had other plans. All flights in and out of Ballina had been cancelled due to the high winds. We got a new one way rental, and headed off down the M1/A1 (wait was I in the UK, or AU?) to Sydney. I do love road tripping, and road tripping in a foreign land is also an amazing experience! Jeremiah finally got to see some kanga’s in the wild. That sums up the SOTA portion of that trip, the rest was just me relaxing, and enjoying a break away from the snow of Tahoe.

Now I am back in W6 land and ready for my 120th activation for Mountain Goat! Stay tuned when I finally get it, but who knows when. Maybe this Saturday as part of the Tahoe/Reno meetup being hosted in Sparks NV.

73 de N6JFD

Tahoe OGUL list (SOTA-fied)

So for those that do a lot of peak bagging in the Tahoe area you may have heard or read about the Tahoe OGUL list. “Ogul” is the Washoe word for Bighorn Sheep. That is kind of fitting since Cali/W6 has an award called the California Bighorn Ram
“The Bighorn Ram Award is available to those activators who have accumulated 500 points activating W6 summits.” –W6 ARM.
The Tahoe OGUL list is 63 peaks in the area of Lake Tahoe, Carson Pass, Ebbetts Pass, the Sweetwater range and a few others dotted here and there. Please note that not every peak on the OGUL list qualifies as a Summits on the Air summit. SOTA adheres to the P125 meter standard for prominence, and some of the peaks on the OGUL lack the prominence compared to other nearby peaks. Case in point Basin Peak and it’s proximity to Castle Crags, the prominence is only 337 feet and on the same ridge as Castle Crags. I will include those peaks as well just for the sake of keeping the list correct as it exists at the OGUL pages but the SOTA Ref will just say “Not in Sota”.

If you would like more information on the history of the Tahoe OGUL list by all means check out http://www.tahoeogul.org/. Summits on the air can be found at http://sota.org.uk

And now the table:

9735′ / 2967m

Peak Name	Elevation	SOTA Reference	Lat/Lon
Adams Peak	8197′ / 2498m	W6/NS-158	39.9106, -120.1001
Anderson Peak	8683′ / 2647m	Not SOTA	39.2591, -120.2971
Basin Peak	9015′ / 2748m	Not SOTA	39.3822, -120.3645
Black Butte	8030’/2448m	W6/NS-170	39.3950, -120.5579
Castle Peak	9103′ / 2775m	W6/SN-038	39.3655, -120.3492
Desert Creek Peak	8969′ / 2733m	W7N/TR-009	38.6139, -119.3160
Devils Peak	7704′ / 2348m	W6/NS-197	39.2824, -120.4406
Dicks Peak	9974′/3040m	W6/NS-068	38.9004, -120.1510
Duane Bliss Peak	8658’/2638m	W7N/TR-014	38.0806, -119.8781
East Sister	10402′ / 3171m	W7N/TR-001	38.5232, -119.2901
Ellis Peak	8740′ / 2664m	W6/NS-133	39.0684, -120.198
English Mountain	8373′ / 2552m	W6/NS-141	39.4463, -120.5510
Freel Peak	10881′ / 3317m	W6/SN-034	39.4463, -120.5510
Genoa Peak	9150′ / 2789m	W7N/TR-007	39.0430, -119.8813
Granite Chief	9006′ / 2745m	W6/NS-115	39.1983, -120.2868
Haskell Peak	8107′ / 2471m	W6/NS-162	39.6624, -120.5522
Hawkins Peak	8107′ / 2471m	W6/NS-065	38.7384, -119.8726
Highland Peak	10934′ / 3333m	W6/NS-033	38.5438, -119.7558
Jack Peak	9856′ / 3004m	Not in SOTA	38.8905, -120.1542
Jeff Davis Peak	8990′ / 2740m	W6/NS-114	38.6366, -119.8965
Jobs Peak	10633′ / 3241m	W6/NS-047	38.8579, -119.8616
Jobs Sister	10823′ / 3299m	Not in SOTA	38.8625, -119.8847
Lookout Peak	9584′ / 2921m	W6/NS-088	38.5107, -119.8730
Lyon Peak	8891′ / 2710m	Not in SOTA	39.2068, -120.3157
Markleeville Peak	9417′ / 2870m	W6/NS-096	38.6617, -119.8979
McConnell Peak	9099′ / 2773m	Not in SOTA	38.9485, -120.2430
Middle Sister	10859′ / 3310m	W6/ND-004	38.5080, -119.2952
Mokelumne Peak	9332′ / 2844m	W6/NS-103	38.5380, -120.0948
Mt Elwell	7812′ / 2381m	W6/NS-182	39.7082, -120.6883
Mt Fillmore	7715′ / 2351m	W6/NS-194	39.7302, -120.8525
Mt Mildred	8398′ / 2560m	W6/NS-142 (Same Ridgeline) SOTA pk is taller	39.1460, -120.3300
Mt Patterson	11673′ / 3558m	W6/ND-001	38.4366, -119.3051
Mt Price	9975′ / 3040m	W6/NS-377	38.8641, -120.1743
Mt Rose	10776′ / 3285m	W7N/WC-001	39.3437, -119.9171
Mt Siegel	9450′ / 2880m	W7N/TR-003	38.8896, -119.5016
Mt Lola	9143′ / 2787m	W6/NS-111	39.4329, -120.3644
Mt Tallac	9735′ / 2967m	W6/SN-036	38.9060, -120.0987
Needle Peak	8971′ / 2734m	Not in SOTA	39.2007, -120.3008
Old Man Mountain	7789′ / 2374m	W6/NS-184	39.3705, -120.5219
Phipps Peak	9234′ / 2815m	Not in SOTA near NS-105	38.9546, -120.1499
Pyramid Peak	9983′ / 3043m	W6/NS-067	38.8445, -120.1577
Ralston Peak	9235′ / 2815m	W6/NS-108	38.8333, -120.1015
Raymond Peak	10011′, 3051m	W6/NS-066	38.6040, -119.8333
Red Lake Peak	10061′ / 3067m	W6/NS-062	38.7142, -119.9873
Red Peak	9307′ / 2837m	Not in SOTA	38.9254, -120.2214
Reynolds Peak	9690′ / 2954m	W6/NS-081	38.5793, -119.8377
Round Top	10380′ / 3164m	W6/NS-055	38.6635, -120.0015
Rubicon Peak	9183′ / 2799m	Not in SOTA	38.9886, -120.1335
Sierra Buttes	8587′ / 2617m	W6/NS-139	39.5937, -120.6460
Signal Peak	7841′, 2390m	W6/NS-179	39.3390, -120.5352
Silver Peak	8930′, 2722m	Not in SOTA	38.9347, -120.2306
Silver Peak	10774′ / 3284m	Not in SOTA	38.5641, -119.7603
Snow Mountain	8014′ / 2443m	W6/NS-171	39.2412, -120.4639
Snow Valley Peak	9214′ / 2808m	W7N/TR-006	39.1538, -119.8830
South Sister	11339′ / 3456m	W6/ND-002	38.4824, -119.3001
Stevens Peak	10061′ / 3067m	W6/NS-375	38.7336, -119.9827
Tells Peak	8872′ / 2704m	Not in SOTA	38.9600, -120.2545
The Nipple	9340′ / 2847m	W6/NS-102	38.6402, -119.9332
Tinker Knob	8949′ / 2728m	W6/NS-121	39.2448, -120.2851
Twin Peaks	8878′ / 2706m	W6/NS-128	39.1124, -120.2317
Wade Benchmark	9367′ / 2855m	Not in SOTA but near W6/NS-100	38.8166, -119.8425
Waterhouse Peak	9497′ / 2895m	W6/NS-092	38.7762, -119.9655
Wheeler Peak	11664′ / 3555m	Not in SOTA near W6/ND-001	38.4186, -119.2881

Yet another list of peaks I was aware of, but did not really bother to look into until I realized I have completed about 60% of these peaks (as of Nov, 2018) including a lot of the non SOTA peaks.

I may reach out to the Association Managers for W6 and W7N to see if a dual state list based award similar to the Tahoe Ogul pages, but SOTA specific is possible.

Hear you on the next one
73 de N6JFD.

The push for Mountain Goat, and other new happenings.

That’s right, I’m getting to the stretch to make Mountain Goat. As of Nov 5 I am sitting on 841 points. I’ve already set the date for Mountain Goat on a peak back east. W4C/EM-003 (Hump Mountain) This mountain has special meaning from the childhood. I have already booked my tickets for Martin Luther King Weekend. I am thinking Sunday. I’ll use Saturday to pick up any extra points needed on the way. As much as this next part saddens me, so long as winter in the Sierra continues to be warm and dry, I am going to keep taking advantage of the open roads, and working those double peak days on drive ups or peaks with a < 1 mile hike. Obviously not as fun as the 20 miles it takes for Pyramid peak, or a long overnight just to get to the launching point for a SOTA summit, but I am close so it is time to push on with a lot of efficiency.

The last time we spoke I had just finished some more Hope Valley peaks, since then I have done 216 points, and have been out almost every weekend. Nothing to epic, although I did do 3 peaks on the same weekend I ran a half marathon. That was interesting given the half was down in Joshua Tree, but all the peaks I did were up in the Whites. Had a few other firsts, I went out on Grouse Ridge on a Friday night for the specific purpose of chasing and/or getting chased by VK/ZL land. I had a contact with VK on SSB, I could hear a couple more, and almost had an S2S with VK. No ZL calls came back to me. That same night I did have a cross-mode SOTA contact with KB6B. For those not sure what cross-mode is, I was operating SSB on an SSB frequency and this individual contacted me via cw. I was able to get the data I needed for the contact. On a different activation I was chased by someone from JP land as well, so I know have Asia, Australia and Europe for SOTA contacts. I have also managed to go out with a few different activators, K6ARK for an activation, and KE6MT and I both also went out for a weekend. Now that we are both involved with the leadership for W6 we did a lot of planning conversations while we were hiking and such. The W6 ARM will be getting updated soon enough.

So, from this point, I have 8 weekends I can do SOTA to get the 149 points I need to be setup to push past 1000. I only need 3×8 pointers, or 2×10 pointers per weekend to accomplish the task. December 1 is the start of the +3 winter bonus for most of the regions I activate. I’ve got most of the weekends filled up with which peaks, but somewhere in there I know it’s going to snow..Hopefully we get enough snow to make it possible to snowmobile come mid December, because that will open up a LOT of territory for me. For now I will keep plugging along hitting the 8/10 pointers that I know I can get 2 – 4 peaks per weekend. One of those weekend’s the Thanksgiving weekend I will head to the Crowley lake area; with that being a 3-5 day weekend I can snag 50+ points as there are quite a few peaks that have very short hikes to reach. That weekend and the rest of Nov should help out with the goal. The reason why I have put such a close timeline is I am heading to Australia in Feb, it will be my last trip with Jeremiah for ski week before he heads off to the Army next August, I did NOT want to make GOAT while on another continent, and since I knew which peak I wanted to do I wanted a three day weekend. what’s yet another challenge? Maybe I can get some more EU contacts that weekend.

So lets also discuss the SLOTH in the room. No I’ve not hit Shack Sloth yet, however i am at 860 chaser points, so long as I do not go out of my way to chase, AND I get an S2S here and there along the way I can actually hit Sloth and Goat on my Hump mountain activation. I’ll probably run my chaser points up to 995 leading into that weekend. Hopefully someone is getting out that weekend somewhere to help me hit 1000 chaser points. Apparently it has not been done yet either. The funny thing is I was not even aware of how many chaser points I had, I was more into the S2S points, and just happened to notice how close my numbers were. Those chaser points add up when you try and work S2S a lot. I’ve had a few activations along the way where I did not post a single spot and just chased S2S.

I will update as time goes on to see how I am doing (even if only monthly). Maybe toss out a quick note if there are some more epic outings etc.

Some images from the past couple of months.

Stop going out unprepared! (a note from the SAR perspective)

Been a while since i have blogged about SOTA but I have still been getting out there (365 points so far this year). Part of that time though has also seen the usual increase in SAR activity. For those that do not know I am a member of a SAR team located in the Sierra Nevada. So this is going to be a soapbox post, more for the general public then for SOTA people, and most SOTA people seem to be in the know and I hope they are in the know! Still think this is worth talking about though as a nice break from a SOTA trip report

When you read an article in your paper/online whatever and it says “hey go check out this NOVICE trail” do a bit more search then what that article supplies. We’ve had 5 SARS in the past month at a trailhead we maybe see 1 SAR in a year at that this was a direct contributing factor. Oh I’ll pick on more subjects then just these 5, but we’re going to start here! It was nice that some local paper/news outlet/whatever covered a trail to help get some exposure for it (or maybe not since increased use means increased damage) but that should not be the end of it from a research perspective. In the case of this trail maybe ask yourself some other questions like… “This is in the Sierra, what is the elevation, have I ever hiked at this elevation before?” Will my cellphone and google maps/alltrails/gaia GPS/whatever map app you use be enough in an area that probably does not have cell coverage? Have I left a plan with someone? That is the one that most people miss. They do not leave a plan. What supplies will I need? sure it’s warm during the day, but at night, when it’s 50, 40, or even down to 30 degrees, if I do end up being over due will I be warm? Which leads me to my next question, do I have a light? do I have food, enough water, or a way to treat water if I pull it from the streams? That water may look cool, clear and tasty, but chances are if it’s in the mountains it’s probably had some marmot fecal matter in it, or donkey/horse where trail crews use pack animals to take supplies in etc. Unless you want to lose 20-30 pounds FAST, do not drink the water untreated!!! I will not recommend any product or what to carry beyond perhaps consult the 10 essentials. Oh and also, IF you are taking your pup figure out things like what is the longest hike I have taken my dog on? Have I ever had my pup walk on Sierra Granite? Maybe I need shoes for my dog? SAR teams technically are not allowed to rescue animals, some districts may try and fudge it via some other various justification like “the owner was not going to leave the animal, so the owner was going to put his/herself in harm”. Be advised too that if a SAR team comes to help you with your four-legged friend, IF animal services/Humane Society/whatever happens to be in tow there is a chance you might get cited for animal negligence (yes I have seen this happen first hand. That owner started crying b/c of the overall ordeal and this last minute surprise). Sorry but as an animal lover, I concur with AS’s action in this case. The owner should have known better. ” stated they had never heard of shoes for a dog”

So back on the weather angle for a second, and I think I have ranted on this particular group of subjects in the past, but the employees from a large technology company who own a mapping division who thought it would be a great idea to go bag a 9000 foot peak in the Sierras in January. They had nothing more then 2 16oz bottles of water each, no food, blue jeans, their company schotzky jackets, and IIRC one individual of that group of three was actually wearing canvas VANs shoes. If I really need to explain even a few things that are wrong in the above, do yourself (and your local SAR teams) a favor, and stay on the couch. Sorry if I am sounding elitist, but I’ve seen enough folks not using the massive lump of gray material between their ears that just asking themselves a few basic questions would have saved themselves some possible embarrassment..

So what I will recommend is that you at least understand what the 10 essentials are. I have heard a few people often refer to this as “some arbitrary list that does no good” and well there is some truth to that statement IF you do not know how to effectively use the items, you can technically survive for a few days with just these supplies.

What are the 10 essentials? https://www.nps.gov/articles/10essentials.htm

A Pack while not on the list, is needed for carrying this stuff, so might as well put this at the top of the list. They also do not list some sort of knife (I call out a multi-tool below) but I can do more with a 4 inch full tang blade for survival then I can with a multi-tool. (Full tang means the entire length of the knife is a single chunk of steel, it’s not a folding knife etc). If you have to cut on trees to build a shelter you will end up possibly breaking a folding knife etc.).

Navigation: A cell phone alone will not cut it. Even with external battery/recharge capabilities, you are going to be in some areas where you may not have access to a cell tower. (Sometimes you do need Data to pull that map down). A GPS unit, or even just a paper map is a good back up. For you weight weenies out there, paper is pretty darn light.. The important thing here is whatever your nav method, KNOW HOW TO USE IT, or it is basically trash in your pack.

SUN PROTECTION: Sunscreen, hat, sunglasses etc. This is pretty self explanatory, and I’d almost say the sunglasses are more important in winter then summer.

INSULATION – Jacket, hat, gloves, rain shell, and thermal underwear: The weather report may say “0% chance of rain and sunny” but the mountain does not always listen to the weather forecasters. The mountains are capable of making their own weather, and storms can come up out of no where. Even in the Sierras in the middle of July it can snow at night and if you are out there with nothing more then shorts and a t-shirt, you are going to have a long, cold, miserable night.

Illumination: Another one of those “and your cell phone alone will not cut it” items. I remember once i was backpacking somewhere and I was on a nearby peak to my campsite. It was nearly sunset (I had run up to watch sunset) and this group of 6 day hikers were just making the summit obviously very tired. They asked me “how long will it take us to go down?” I replied with “45 minutes quicker then it took you to go up” (which is true for most people). I could see that did not settle well with them, and I went into the “and you have a light and warm clothes? it gets cold and dark up here”. Hit our SAR coordinator via the radio on my way back down the trail to my camp.

First Aid Supplies: This does not need to be that exhaustive; mole skin, some aspirin, some bandaids etc..basic first aid you might keep in your house. Not looking for you to be carrying SAM splints and being able to reset a dislocation here, just enough to deal with the minor discomforts that can happen.

Fire: This is one of those, that depending on where you live, I hesitate to say “be able to make a fire AND control it”. Over the past few years fires in the backcountry end up being banned in a lot of the western states during late summer/fall. Reality is, if you have a jacket, and the rest of the stuff on the list you can go without a fire. While I do love a good campfire I’d rather my house be standing then burned down from a wildfire I caused while trying to stay warm while lost. The Cedar Fire (2003, San Diego) and Rim Fire (Groveland/Yosemite 2013) which is the 5th largest in CA history as well as many others were all started by individuals who were lost and cold, and their fires got out of control. There are others but most folks will have heard of these (if they live in California). Again, I’ll re-iterate, if the fire danger is anything but Green/Low use your clothing layers that are in this list and skip the fire. Winter, by all means do what you can to stay warm.

REPAIR KIT AND TOOLS – Duct tape, knife, screwdriver, and scissors: A multi-tool is enough there, and if you happen to use trekking poles, that is a great way to hold duct tape for emergency use.

NUTRITION – Food: You may only think you are heading out for a couple of hours, but part of being out there is enjoying nature and taking some time, so might as well have enough food to last you 24 hours just in case, besides a salami and cheese tastes great when hanging by that alpine lake. Sure we can go 5 days without eating, but if it’s cold out, you’ll stay warmer if you have some extra calories, even something as simple as a few extra trail bars can make a difference.

HYDRATION – Water and water treatment supplies: I think I ranted on this above, just because that water looks clean does not mean it is. Giardia, Cryptosporidia etc. They all exist in our water. If your destination is a popular one, you can believe your water will be contaminated with something.

EMERGENCY SHELTER – Tent, space blanket, tarp, and bivy: This can be anything from a Bothy bag, to the emergency blankets that are the size a deck of cards, reality is, if you have your emergency clothing listed above, you can survive the night (unless you are stuck in torrential rain/heavy snow).

That is the list of things that most backcountry travelers will tell you you cannot live without (with the exception of building a campfire if in a high fire danger area). However it is one thing to carry it, it’s totally another thing to know how to use it when it’s time. So take the time to understand what you are carrying and why.

So when you get to that trailhead, it’s worth it to sign the permit/log book on where you plan on hiking. SAR teams do have access to the permit box/log. Heck I was in the backcountry once when a wildfire broke out, and because the NPS had my travel plans on the permit, they used that to call my cell phone (which I was not carrying on that trip) and leave a message asking me to call them when I got out of the BC. We have done similar. Since that time, I now carry a radio, and I do have it open on part 90 frequencies so I can listen to fire crews in the field, and if needed get beta on where I need to go to stay safe. (as an amateur radio operator I would never advise anyone to just pick up a radio and start yelling into the microphone beyond to say “do what you have to do to ensure the security of human life and limb”). The FCC is not going to fine you if you found someone injured and called “SOS” on whatever frequency they might have programmed in.

While I am at it, I might as well mention and IF you do get lost, STAY PUT! There is a wonderful thing that is being taught to kids now: “If you get lost ‘S.T.O.P’ Stop. Think. Observe. Plan. If you did leave your plan with someone, and you are not that far off your intended path by staying put we will be able to find you quicker.

Good luck and enjoy the nature, be safe, be prepared and PLEASE LEAVE NO TRACE!

Griswold Euro Vacation: DL, DM, GM, G SOTA edition; or SOTA in Eu, where most all qso are dx :)

This is a LONG write up since it covers the SOTA highlights of a three week EU tour.

So time for the annual family trip, and this year we decided England and Germany ftw. I was not sure how much SOTA I would get to do, but I took my gear anyway!! After spending a few days in London we took one of those awesome cheap flights on Ryan air to Germany and landed in Memmingen, picked up a rental and away we went. Stop one was going to be Neuschwanstein, and would you not guess but yes there was some SOTA action to be had. There is a trail up by the castle that accesses two different SOTA peaks and that being Branderscrofen (DL/AM-031) and Säuling (OE/TI-448). There are a few other peaks in the area, but these can both be accessed from the town of Schwangau Germany. Oh if I could have had one more day, I could have had two associations. :).

The hike from Neuschwanstein to Branderscrofen is ~5.5 miles of which the first 2.5 miles gains 80% of the elevation. Once we reached the cruising altitude, (I mean flat stretch) up high the hike went pretty quick. There is also a tram you can take to reach an area that is ~25 minutes from the summit, and also has a restaurant, and heli port for hang gliders and paragliders. The summit is a knife edge ridge, and there is not a lot of room for what is a very popular summit. I ended up tossing my vertical for HF off the side and radials deployed as normal. A few folks showed interest in what I was doing and as usual I obliged. I ended up getting three s2s one of of which was a gentlemen who was 15km away in Austria (vhf). In less then an hour I ended up with contacts in the UK, Munich, Sweden, Austria and Poland.

Time	Call	Band	Mode	Notes
10:36z	DD5LP	14MHz	SSB	58 into Munich.
10:42z	OE/DJ2FR	144MHz	FM	S2S
10:45z	SA4BLM	14MHz	SSB	Sweden!! s57, r55
10:46z	MC0POG	14MHz	SSB	55, 55 wales
10:49z	G0RQL	14MHz	SSB	r44, s57 South England
10:54z	SO9EWA	14MHz	SSB	S2S, SP/BZ-046 s55
11:02z	DG1EHM	14MHz	SSB	S2S, DL/AL-107 s/r 55

We decided to hang a 2nd day in Schwangau since it was so much like home.

Next up we rolled to Stuttgart with the intention of heading to Heidelberg after checking out the Porsche museum. As a last minute effort i opted to snag Königstuhl DM/BW-114. (Soapbox time): So here is where I have to bag yet again on google maps and those that use it as a sole means of navigation off the beaten path. This is the first time I have looked to GM to route me to a summit and I did it without a backup map, and I dare say it looks like GM either uses the wrong datum, or has poor coverage of Germany (well they suck in the US too) because the actual summit and lat long for Konigstuhl vs where GM sends you is off by a mile. I guess Google is not really the cartographers they thought they were and they should either hire pro cartographers, or leave it to the pros. (i have rescued plenty a hiker in the Sierras who thought GM would get them safely to/from many a backcountry spot and failed to do so…). More over for folks who rely soley upon GM, good luck.. Soapbox aside, once on Summit it was a lot of work to get just 4 qso. No one was listening (or they did not hear me) on 2m, and same with 20/40. I managed 1 cw contact with Guru in Spain, another Spanish contact on SSB, Southern England, and a Sweden also on SSB. at this rate it was time to head on but it took me ~90 minutes to get those four contacts.

We spent the next few days heading to Hamburg for our flight to Edinburgh where I was planning to activate Arthur’s Seat; however I had not received word back from HES with approval to operate on the grounds. I later found an individual from HES and they said that there was added security in the area because of some upcoming events they were way behind on approvals etc. So we headed West towards the Battle of Bannockburn as well as Stirling. I was hoping to find some way to get the “GM” association in the books, and I was surrounded by some 4 pointers, and further to the west getting into the highlands some 6 and 8 pointers. The daughter was wanting to see Loch Ness and some of the other lakes in that area, and I thinking the Scottish Highlands would be a cool place to visit, plus we needed a down day to do some laundry headed to Fort William. After scoping the SotaGoat app of the area near Fort William I realized, oh snap that’s the launching point for Ben Nevis! Yes the UK highpoint :D. Funny too because a couple of days before I’d read an article about how the local SAR team refused to come rescue an individual complaining about his feet being too wet.

I wish our SAR team could get away with that, we have had calls similar to that in our area. So, with all that in mind, and the fact that Ben Nevis is socked in more days then not I checked the weather and noticed that Scotland was under a high pressure and was going to be the warmest day in some 100+ years etc.

So with a gallon of water and my gear (and some spare clothes in case) I headed up from the Glen Nevis trailhead. Made the summit in 3hours and 15 minutes, not too shabby. The summit of Ben Nevis is quite impressive actually! It’s easily an acre in size on top, and there is what looks like the remains of a fort built up top and a weather station as well.

I had not even dropped my pack before I heard the first “cq sota” on 2m, so I responded with S2S and we QSY’d to something off the calling freq. The other guy had a buddy that was also able to hear me, so I picked up my second QSO. To boot someone else could hear my side of those QSO, but not the S2S, so I snagged that contact..all told within 4 minutes I had 3 of the 4 needed for the activation. I setup the HF gear, but did not have a way to get my vertical “up”. I did manage 1 on 20m for the 4th. Checking in with the family, they were about to finish up at Loch Ness and thinking I’d need about 3 hours to walk down I tore everything down, finished up my lunch and starting to walk off the summit. Kept the HT in my hand and kept hearing folks calling “cq sota” and I was more then willing to oblige with the S2S. I think I walked another 10 minutes still in the AZ picking up four more 2m contacts, 3 of which were S2S.

Time	Call	Band	Mode	Notes
11:01z	GM3YSA	144MHz	FM	S2S, GM/SS-034
11:03z	MM0XPZ	144MHz	FM	r52, s57
11:05z	GM7PKT/P	144MHz	FM	s55, r44
11:46z	DJ5AU	14MHz	SSB	s59, r56
12:19z	GM7VAU	144MHz	FM	s57, r52
12:27z	MM3ZCB/P	144MHz	FM	S2S SI-153
12:28z	M1MAJ/P	144MHz	FM	S2S, SI-153
12:29z	GM0UDL/M	144MHz	FM	S2S, GM/WS-079

We had a July 1 deadline of reaching Bovingdon UK where my son was looking to go to Tankfest. So we opted to head down towards Glasgow, regroup and then roll down south. I have always wanted to see the Lake District, so we cut off at Penrith and started working our way south by Ullswater lake. While at lunch, I whipped out SotaGoat again to see what might have been around, and oddly enough a peak I had favorited for some reason popped up. Red Screes was right off the A592 and looked like a pretty short hike overall (despite the warmth). So once we reached Kirkstone Pass we parked, I tossed a spot on sotawatch, snagged the HT, downed a liter of water and pushed up this peak in about 30 minutes. It is definitely an interesting hike up, as well as an interesting summit area.

This one being a 2m only, I still tossed a spot up since I was near some local areas, and it seems like the UK really love their SOTA activators! I managed to get the contacts I needed in about 20 minutes, and given that I had folks waiting on me down the hill decided to hike down.

Time	Call	Band	Mode	Notes
15:28z	G0JDM	144MHz	FM	s59 r57
15:29z	G4WHA/A	144MHz	FM	s57 r55
15:30z	G4RQJ	144MHz	FM	s57 r59
15:33z	G7GQL	144MHz	FM	s57, r59
15:34z	M0SPI	144MHz	FM	Steve, s57, r56
15:40z	G0HRT	144MHz	FM	Rob, S58, r57

After the Lake district all of my planned SOTA was taken care of, I’d been hoping for G, GM, DM and DL and accomplished that. Not to be completely done though since Tankfest was sold out, and I had not planned on going anyway I drove down to a nearby peak, setup my vertical and chased S2S for about 5 hours. (ie..I was not looking to activate said peak for points, so just operated as a chaser getting the S2S/Chaser points). Managed a few cw contacts, and spent about 90 minutes trying to get into the pile up for K2I during the July 4th checkin. 20m was real long as I also heard some EA calls trying to make contact with K2I. All in all, did more SOTA then I had hoped for, and at the end of the day the only peak that was on my original list was Branderscrofen, everything else was the result of flying by the seat of our pants, and making it up as we go :D.

A few other parting shots from the various activation hikes..

Red Screes pano

73 and talk to you on the next summit! — N6JFD

W4G/W4T/W4C, 2 days 4 peaks, no sleep :D. Spring my ass!

(From April) Time for my spring trip to TN to visit the homestead, and I wanted to pick up some W4G action since I just finished mapping the SOTA peaks on the AT. I will post that as a separate blog, as that was a very interesting planning effort, and maybe in a couple of years I’ll take the 4 months it will take to do the AT+SOTA as a single thru hike mission.

Anyway back to this trip, landed in Knoxville and picked up a 4wd since I’d heard that there was going to maybe be some snow in the area.. Wait, did I hear that right? Snow? it’s April, it’s the Southeast, again, SNOW? Like they always said when I was growing up, do not like the weather, wait 10 minutes. Dropped the son off at my dad’s, picked up a sleeping bag, pad and wool blanket then rolled down to the Blood Mountain trailhead for some sleep. Finally drifted off to sleep around 6am, but woke up at 730 to start the hike up.. snagged some breakfast, downed a liter of water and hit the trail around 800am. The crazy thing about the AT is that you do a LOT of UP climbing, and the folks that built the AT did not believe in doing switchbacks, I bet adding switchbacks to most of the major climbs would add another 500 miles to the AT ;-). Anyway, so UP I climbed, to hit the summit of Blood mountain. It had rained the day before, then got cold overnight and a freezing fog moved in which made from some really cool rime ice on the trees and spider webs. <insert frozen web here> While on the hike up the temps warmed up enough that the rime ice started falling off the trees, and dropping a fresh layer of frost on the ground. The view was not that great today because of the heavy fog in the area, but I found a nice rock platform to sit on only to realize I was sitting on the Blood Mountain marker <insert marker here>

Contacts from this activation: 20m: K6MW, W7RV, N5ZC. 40m: KG3W, W0MNA, W9MRH, KD9JJE, K3TCU.

I was a bit early for the west coast on this peak, and ended up getting more 40 then 20 today. Now that the contacts were slowing down, decided I wanted to snag a second summit, and realized I was very close to Brasstown Bald (NG-001) so opted to book it down the hill and hit that on the drive up to Carvers Gap. FYI, this is a fee area with a good lookout platform up top kind of like Clingmans Dome, but it also has some towers on top that can inject some RFI.. You have the option to take the shuttle up, but this is SOTA, and the hike from the parking lot is ~6/10 of a mile and a couple hundred feet. NOTE: the parking lot is NOT in the AZ, so do not try and activate from there..(not that you should be activating from a motorized vehicle anyway 😉 ).

The bands either dropped out in the 2 hours since I left the summit of Blood, or there really was a good amount of RFI on the peak. Quite a few folks though showed interest in what I was doing though, so I was helping “spread the gospel of Amateur Radio and SOTA”. while playing with various antenna angles and setups. I started on the platform itself since no one was up there, but it did start to get crowded, so I moved across the road to the top of the walking route and setup there on a nice park bench. Not that it helped much. I managed to eek out 4 contacts with 1 being an S2S on 18m while on the peak today but even 2m was a challenge as I was trying to S2S with a guy who was on a peak 20 miles crowfly away. I could barely make this guy on Clingman’s dome as well, (he was not doing SOTA, but was trying to act as a relay). I’ve hit S2S on VHF for Clingman’s from Black Mountain in Kentucky, but yes I know conditions change, and other factors apply..still I was not that far from either the activator I was trying to hit, nor Clingmans dome in the grand scheme of things.

If you happen to be driving by Brasstown Ga, and have your gear by all means go bag this summit.

contacts for Brasstown Bald: S2S: KJ6HOT on 18m we had to work it hard, but ended up getting 2×2 to each other so digging each other out of the QSB. 20m W0MNA, K6HPX, and 40m W9MRH.

So this adds W4G to the association list, and I am finally silver on the Mountain Hunter. (SOTA is not a competition, SOTA is not a competition).

Growing up the section of AT from Carvers Gap to 19E was always one of my favorites, I’d managed a lot of volunteer trail hours and numerous hikes “across the balds”. Hump mountain was always fun because it really is a hump up it when you are schlepping a pack. I guess i’ve always enjoyed hiking UP mountains :D. Anyway I decided early on I wanted to go ahead and snag Roan High Knob and Grassy Ridge as well on this trip to the East coast. Leading up to this trip I’d been talking to KI4SVM hoping to meet up either OTA, or at some TH, and as an awesome turn of fate he joined me for the RHK and GR activations. I love getting out with other folks as it allows me to see how others setup, and maybe how to change my own setup to improve my QSO count per activation. Carvers Gap has always had some of the strangest weather in contrast to the region around it. It can be 70 or 80 down in Knoxville and cold, blowing and snowing up there. This trip was no different. Woke up on Monday morning with an inch of fresh snow. Needless to say, I broke a few of my own rules on preparedness today, but even if I had gotten in a pickle I was not that far from the trailhead, and I knew the area well enough that I am able to navigate it in the clouds pretty well. Lets face it the AT is more of a trough in the ground, definitely well past the “well worn in path” stage at this rate of it’s life, so it’s kind of hard to get lost in the context of being on the AT. So KI4SVM and I headed up to Roan High Knob with the intention that I would take the first hour for my own activation, and then I would book it over to Grassy Ride while Pat worked his own activation and then we would S2S and I would also get the SOTA complete for RHK. The hike up to RHK is about less then an hour or approximately 2 miles (and is not as steep as Blood Mountain) from the trailhead at Carvers Gap, in the summer you can access from the upper parking lot and it’s shorter. KI4SVM setup his antenna setup and it is based upon a setup I’d learned back in EC-001 so this may be one thing I am looking to add to my own kit depending on the weight it adds. He also showed me how to properly work with the HAM log APP to make it efficient for SOTA, so I am looking to use that method in the future when my hands are not too frozen to use the iphone for logging. Had a lot of local contacts directly beneath us on 20, gotta love that LOS etc. I managed more QSO on RHK then the other three summits, I’m beginning to think it’s operator error.

Contacts here where: 80m: N4EX, KW4R, 40m: K4MF, KG3W, KE8CYC, W2SE, W0MNA, W0ERI, K3TCU, and K9ER, and on 20m: K1LIZ, KI4TN, KB1RJD, KB1RJC, and KX0R.

Since we used KI4SVM rig for the setup here, all I needed to do was grab my pack and drop down and over. On a good day, with good weather this should take you about 90 minutes, I kept bumping into thru hikers, so I would chit chat while making progress. It took me just under 2 hours to cover the 4 miles. Spent about 15 minutes talking to one person about SOTA, and why I always carry an HT even when I am backpacking etc.. So we may have a new operator in our midsts some time soon. For not having my normal antenna mast, there was a decent enough area to setup between the rock on the summit and a nearby tree. My EFHW was just long enough to make that span, although I am not sure if it improved my ability to make contacts by much b/c it seemed after an hour EVERYTHING including 2m and my iphone all stopped working right. Maybe the cold, maybe some other atmospheric condition, but something changed for the negative overall.

I would comment about how pretty this hike is, and if you can get a hike up there in June/July when the Gray’s lily is in bloom (please do not pick it) and when you can see more then 10 feet ahead; it really is an awesome hike, but today, like so many times before when I hit this in early season I was shrouded in the clouds and winds so visibility was non-existent. . I’ll be coming back later this year to bag Hump Mountain for sure, so maybe I can get some good images in then, I’ll even do the Carvers gap long approach just for the sake of good views (and maybe images).

As noted above, something changed during the activation, but I did manage enough QSO for a good summit, and as noted the S2S with Pat for a SOTA complete! anyway QSO info: 2m: KI4SVM, KJ4ZFK KI4AAU, WX4ET (i’ve been trying to contact this guy forever!). 20m: K0RS, K6MW, and K5WLT who happened to hear my CQ. and 40m: KG3W. The hike out was more clouds, winds, and chit chatting with the thru hikers.

Just a couple of observations from this and the last couple of East coast trips. Once you get chased by someone that’s normally out of your reach, they tend to try and extend it when you are back in your home activating region. Folks that I made QSO with last year when doing W4K/W4V now chase me when I’m on the W6 and other peaks out west, so that is good! Also have noticed just as a general observation the number of W6, W7W and W7O activators does seem to be increasing, so glad to see that more and more folks in the W regions are getting on the air as well as on the air on summits!!!. Ham Radio is NOT a dying art.

As always images below, thanks for stopping by, 73 and hope to hear you OTA, or hike with you at some point!

Easter weekend SOTA(s): W7N/WC-005 and W6/NS-290 and a companion

Saturday: Was a productive and beautiful spring weekend in the Tahoe area! Miracle March has left and the temps are warming, and the difference in one week in the Mount Rose area was very noticeable. If you remember/read, last weekend I did W7N/WC-003 Tamarack Peak in waist deep powder, this weekend I was literally on the other side of Mt Rose highway walking on hard pack easily going 2mph faster… Looking back at Tamarack on Saturday, what was covered the weekend before was already showing bare. So Spring is here, and while MM delivered an awesome 12 feet to help our meager snow pack, it’s already melting off. Before I get into the SOTA side of things, lets rehash this for a second. At the end of January, we were at a 30% snow pack percentage for the ’17/’18 season. At the end of the March we were at 85% of our average… Even with the amazing ’16/’17 season we are still not out of the woods, and we could easily slip back into a drought scenario if we keep having these 70-90% snow pack years. Hopefully we do not accept this as the new norm.. Okay hippy tree hugging climate change PSA is out of the way!! So on Saturday I decided it was time to finish off the Mt Rose section and consequently have finally finished WC-001 thru WC-005 in the process. This is an unnamed peak listed as 9225 (W7N/WC-005). This like Tamarack is one of those i would suggest is easier in the winter then the summer, especially if snowshoeing on hard pack snow..

You can go directly to the peak off trail, there is only really one hard ascent at the end, which you would have to do in the summer too, but the hard pack snow with good grip snowshoes (or crampons would be a good option too) will make the ascent easier to deal with. I would not actually call the ascent that hard, it’s ~800 feet long with 280 feet of climbing for that last final push. The route is 1.7 miles each way. GSP Track image below:

This day was definitely getting warm, and the avalanche danger was getting moderate, however the ascent route is on the north facing side, so that did keep the avy danger down some during the afternoon warming/wet slide concerns.

Easy to get to this location: drive up Mt Rose Highway, and park on either side of the side of the road at Tahoe Meadows/Ophir Creek. (1/2 mile shy of Rose pass).

So next up is an apologies to the chasers, I tend to get a little ADD on Saturdays with the S2S chasing myself. It is hard to focus on just the activation when I am seeing regions i know are reachable, so a lot of times I tend to go try S2S chase while leaving my working freq. If it seems like i have wandered off, it’s bc I’m probably S2S someone.

I spent two hours on the summit on Saturday between chasing S2S (and waiting for a few folks from some of the alerts) and working the activation. I ended up getting S2S with KI4SVM, KH7AL, and VE6IXD. All in all 14 QSO for this summit. Trying to get my QSO count per activation up too!

Time	Call	Band	Mode	Notes
18:22z	N4EX	14MHz	SSB	s3x3, r4x4. into NC
18:23z	W0MNA	14MHz	SSB	5×7 to Ks, thnx Gary
18:25z	W0ERI	14MHz	SSB	5×7 to Ks
18:25z	K9IR	14MHz	SSB	s5x5 r3x3 chicago
18:37z	KH7AL	7MHz	SSB	s2s, 3×3.
18:39z	NS7P	7MHz	SSB	r5x6, s5x5, Thnx Phil
18:57z	K8TE	14MHz	SSB	r5x5, s5x9 NM
18:59z	WA2USA	14MHz	SSB	2×2, 5×9 IN
19:00z	KD0YOD	14MHz	SSB	5×7 to Minn
19:07z	KI4SVM	14MHz	SSB	s2s to w4g
19:12z	WA9STI	7MHz	SSB	weak 3×3, 5×7 to LA
19:14z	NG6R	7MHz	SSB	r4x3, s5x7, thnx Jerry
19:15z	KK7BV	7MHz	SSB	4×5, 5×7 in AZ
20:12z	VE6IXD	14MHz	SSB	s2s, 2×2, s3x3

Sunday:

The snow capped peaks include Pyramid Peak, Price, Little Pyramid. I am standing just below Big Hill on the Big Hill Helispot.

So earlier in the week I’d been talking with N6DNM (Dmitry) about his upcoming Tahoe weekend and working to get a chase on him as well as hopefully doing a double activation with him. Saturday night we agreed we would do Big Hill (W6/NS-290). He’d need to finish up a couple of things, and then he would roll down and meet me in South Lake, and we’d fight the Easter Sunday traffic out of Tahoe down the 50 and to our peak.. So this is one of the few drive up peaks I’ve done. I keep telling myself to explore this side of Desolation, but seem to barely get past Wright’s Lake road headed West. FWIW, I am planning a trip in August to Loon Lake for camping, there I will go after McKinstry and Guide peak. That assumes i do not go buy a side-by-side or some other OHV and approach them via the Rubicon.

It was yet another amazing Sierra Nevada day, and even though the peak is at 6100 feet, no hoody was needed, just shorts, hat, sunglasses, and away we went.

This peak is doable all winter long technically as they keep the road to Big Hill plowed since it is an NFS Fire Tower: Not a lot to write about, so here is my QSO log, and then pictures from the rest of the weekend will be below. 13 contacts, N6DNM and I changed positions for SOTA complete and 1 S2S.

Time	Call	Band	Mode	Notes
20:10z	AE0AX	14MHz	SSB	S2S, r3x3, s4x4
20:16z	KK6YYD	14MHz	SSB	2×2, just above me in Placerville
20:17z	K8HU	14MHz	SSB	r2x2, s5x7 VA
20:35z	KG7LR	144MHz	FM	FQ to LOdi s5x4
20:50z	W6JMP	7MHz	SSB	r5x5, s5x7 SAC ground skip
21:08z	WB6DZJB	144MHz	FM	r5x5, s5x7 Oakley California
21:12z	WJ6N	144MHz	FM	Barry down in Galt, FQ
21:28z	KD0IPI	14MHz	SSB	s5x9, r5x7 MN
21:28z	VA2MO	14MHz	SSB	s5x7 r5x3 DX to QC
21:29z	N1EU	14MHz	SSB	r5x6s5x5, NY
21:32z	WD4CFN	14MHz	SSB	s5x7r3x3QSB, TN
21:35z	KF5ZFL	14MHz	SSB	r: 5x7s5x9 AR