Today’s trip is a hike to Guatay Mtn to
activate “W6/CC-025 - Guatay Mountain”. I’d been looking forward to this hike as my
daughter, Mari Lú, said that she would join me.
It rained quite a bit on Saturday so I was wondering if we would be
hiking in snow as the bottom is at 3,500’ and the top is almost 5,000’.
We got to the trail head at about 9AM and
quickly donned all the layers we brought with us. There wasn’t any snow but it was coldddddd
(to us anyway). It was about 37F, clear
skies and no wind to speak of. After
about 10 minutes on the trail, we started pulling off some of the layers we had
just put on. One thing I learned, if you are going to hike with Mari Lú, you better be in shape. It was an effort trying to keep up with her. She stopped a lot asking if I was OK (probably figured I keeled over with all the loud breathing). She had an advantage though, she wasn't carrying a 40 lb pack!
The trail was enjoyable, mostly dirt where our
climbing poles dug all the wayin, always a welcome feeling. The ground was pretty moist, with mud in a
few spots. The route had a well traveled trail and was
easy to follow until we came to a point where the tail forked. What looked like a hard left up a raveen was
actually the trail we wanted to be on.
Using Alltrails app made it easy and without it, we probably would have
continued strait for a mile before we figured it out.
There were several 300 foot climbs to the peak
and the last one was pretty steep. Setup
was a snap and after also setting up my VHF roll up j-pole antenna I was up and
running. Mari Lú made hot tea for us and
I got busy getting my required contacts.
As I was setting up, I heard a Ham in San Diego who knew I would be up
on the summit, she (km6NRT) was talking about contacting me. It
wasn’t until I hooked up to the j-pole antenna that she could hear me. I immediately had two more contacts that I
knew in the area from talking to them.
The 20 meter band was packed today because
there was some sort of contest going on.
while searching for an open channel, I made a quick contact with a ham
on the island of Aruba. I he was also
“contesting” because there was no chit-chat, just get a contact and move
on. I settled in on a channel that seemed
to be open and picked up my usual “chasers” in the mid-west and Canada. My final contacts were another pair of SOTA
activators like me, so I did a summit-to-summit to W6/CT-103 with Kevin H.
(W6RIP) and Jerry Hildeman (KG6HQD). I
watch Jerry’s Youtube channel often and have picked
up a few good SOTA tips from him. I
asked him if I was going to be on video, so he turned on the camera for the
contact. I look forward to watching his
next video to see how I sound. Our
summits were only about 53 miles apart.
If I was thinking strait, I would have turned on my video for the call
and sent it to him. (UPDATE: You can hear me on THIS VIDEO posted 3/12/2018). He edited me in at the beginning of his contacts, at about 2:24.
Mari Lú had planned to go to a friend’s house
for the Oscars and was itching to get going.
We hustled 2.9 miles down, and up the mountains to the car. It reminded me of the hike up to El Cajon
because right after the steep initial descent, there was a hefty climb for 200
feet up.
We still had time for me to pick up some
carnitas burritos from my favorite restaurant, Veronica’s Kitchen in Descanso.
Miles: 5.8Stats
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Cellular Data: AT&T Yes
Contacts
Call Sign
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Comments
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KM6ORF
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KM6NRT
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KJ6SJY
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P40L
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K1ILZ
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KI4TN
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W0MNA
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K3TCU
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NS7P
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N4EX
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W0EWD
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K0EAP
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AA1VX
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W0ERI
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VE6JHH
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N0EMU
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W6RIP
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Summit to summit W6/CT-103
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WD4CFN
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KG6HQD
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Summit to summit W6/CT-103
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KC0PBR
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KE9AJ
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KE0LXT
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Loadout for today:
● 3 L of water (8
lb)
● SOTA
Dog
● iPhone with All
Trails, MotionX GPS and sota goat
● Hiking poles
REFERENCE
73s,
-- Chris Claborne, N!CLC
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