Today I joined Adam Kimmerly (K6ARK formerly
known as KJ6HOT), Dennis Peck (KA6DUH), and Jeanette on an epic three peak SOTA adventure in the San Gabriel mountains
along the Angel’s crest highway north of LA.
It’s a pretty area to hike in and today we’ll definitely get some miles
in. Adam charted out several options for today’s objectives,
Islip, a 5 mi out and back, Mt. Williamson, about a 5.9 mile out and back, and
Kratka, a 2.2 mile out and back with a bonus of Table Mountain, a drive-up with
.2 out and pack if we play nice.
(Note: Click on pictures for larger rendering)
Once on Mt. Islip, activating was pretty
easy. Being so close to the LA area, you
can easily get four contacts via VHF, with handi-talkies (HT).
Being the real geeks that we are, we setup our HF rigs to see what we
could accomplish on HF. I setup my usual
vertical antenna, Adam broke out his custom magnet loop, and Dennis was using a
super lightweight end-fed 20M setup.
Given the proximity we weren’t going to be able to simultaneously use
our radios, even if we were on separate bands so we decided to share a
channel. Once Adam got a contact after
calling CQ, we would each get a turn to communicate and log a QSO with our radios. At the end, I turned the power up to see how
far I could reach. We had a couple
summit-to-summit contacts, a few midwest contacts and we also ended up on the
NASA log as there was a special event going on today. One of the summit-to-summit contacts was near
us using an HT and it was his first SOTA activation and I’m glad we could be
part of it. Adam is going to send him a
card with our picture on it. [ As a side
note, before the days of email, hams use to send “QSO cards” as a another way of saying hello. ]
After getting a few pictures, we headed out.
Near the top, I slipped a tad and almost did a faceplant. Thankfully, trekking poles saved the day. Next up was Williamson, W6/CT-247.
It was a quick drive up to the parking lot for
the hike up Mt. Williamson. As we
approached the lot, we noticed that a hiker was being loaded onto a
backboard. He had somehow fallen off a
cliff on the trail was just above the road.
The tail leaves the road up a steep incline. After the fall, he evidently had a momentary
loss of consciousness and was pretty banged up.
One of the hikers near by ran got her SPOT satellite signalling device
and called for help. A Sheriff mountain
rescue helicopter was standing by just across from the lot to evacuate the
patient. It’s hard to tell how far he
fell before contacting the ground and sliding down. If he was at the top, it was easily a 25’+
drop into gravel the size of a double fist.
Hopefully he has a full recovery.
Once the hiker was evacuated, we headed out.
The trail up Williamson was nice, nothing too
difficult, a 1,600’ gain over 2.8 miles.
I noticed I was being a bit more careful on the trail. I didn’t want to end up as the next
evacuee. A lot of the trails in the area
are narrow with pretty steep drop offs or are cut along a ridge. It’s nothing too scary but you do need to be
mindful. Also, it’s a good idea to keep
your trekking poles lashed to your hands, else you could drop one off the side,
and without ropes, a rescue of the wayward pole would NOT be advised as most of
the terrain on these hillsides are loose dirt and rock. The last .3 miles were
a bit difficult because: a) I thought I was done when I hit the false summit,
and b) it was a bit rocky, up-down terrain to get through. (Here is the map of our trek up.)
There was a lot more room to setup in the
activation zone for this mountain. VHF
contacts made it easy to get an activation again which is nice because the band
conditions seemed crummy. Adam was on 20
for a while before he turned the frequency over to me. I had a bit easier time grabbing some HF
contacts, probably because I was running 30 watts instead of 5, so I quickly
created a pileup. Dennis eked out a few on 20M when I
was done and Jeanette relaxed with some cheese and cracker and an e-book.
Jeanette headed down first and the rest of us
quickly followed. Adam’s friend Tim was
summiting twin-peaks not far from us after we left the activation zone. We helped him get the required four contacts
but he ended up creating a pileup on 146.520. It was about 3:30 when we
headed down the mountain I think.
Once at the card, Dennis went on the DL due to
a blister on his foot, and Jeanette had fulfilled her primary mission today,
declaring her new backpack combat ready, so they were going to sit out the next
summit. Given the time of day we decided
to just head to Table Mountain, W6/CT-067,
which is what is known as a “drive up”.
The activation zone is only about 0.1 from the parking lot so it would
be an easy one. Although Adam had
already gotten his points for this one (you can only activate a peak once per
year), he headed up with me to play with his VHF amp, a tiny backpack ready
unit that hooks to his HT. The
walk up, setup, activation making 10 contacts, breakdown and walk back to the
car took 45 minutes. Next stop, Bergers
and Brew in Pine, CA.
We enjoyed dinner that included some bergers,
brew, and pizza. We ran into the girl
that called EMS for the downed hiker and had an interesting discussion with
some backpackers from germany and New Zealand.
The guy from New Zealand had been on the trek that Jeanette is planning
on this summer so they both enjoyed exchanging info.
Today’s hike racked up 10 miles, pushing me up
over 200 miles of hiking since October 30th, 2017, and with the 24 points from
the 3 peaks, I now have 127 SOTA points. Yeeeee Haaaaaw!
Update: You can find K6ARK video here. It's excellent!
Update: You can find K6ARK video here. It's excellent!
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|
Contacts
Date
|
Time
|
Summit
|
Band
|
Mode
|
Station
Worked
|
Notes
|
28/Apr/2018
|
15:53
|
W6/CT-010
|
144MHz
|
FM
|
N6JZT
| |
28/Apr/2018
|
15:55
|
W6/CT-010
|
144MHz
|
FM
|
K1BAA
| |
28/Apr/2018
|
15:56
|
W6/CT-010
|
144MHz
|
FM
|
KM6CEM
| |
28/Apr/2018
|
15:58
|
W6/CT-010
|
144MHz
|
FM
|
N6HEG
| |
28/Apr/2018
|
16:06
|
W6/CT-010
|
14MHz
|
SSB
|
K0DAJ
| |
28/Apr/2018
|
16:16
|
W6/CT-010
|
14MHz
|
SSB
|
N4EX
| |
28/Apr/2018
|
16:18
|
W6/CT-010
|
14MHz
|
SSB
|
W6VIO
| |
28/Apr/2018
|
16:26
|
W6/CT-010
|
14MHz
|
SSB
|
NG6R
| |
28/Apr/2018
|
16:27
|
W6/CT-010
|
14MHz
|
SSB
|
ND0C
| |
28/Apr/2018
|
16:32
|
W6/CT-010
|
14MHz
|
SSB
|
WD4CFN
| |
28/Apr/2018
|
16:35
|
W6/CT-010
|
14MHz
|
SSB
|
K6RIN
| |
28/Apr/2018
|
16:35
|
W6/CT-010
|
14MHz
|
SSB
|
AK5SD
| |
28/Apr/2018
|
16:42
|
W6/CT-010
|
144MHz
|
FM
|
AI6ZV
|
Summit-to-summit
|
28/Apr/2018
|
20:19
|
W6/CT-247
|
144MHz
|
FM
|
KM6CEM
| |
28/Apr/2018
|
20:20
|
W6/CT-247
|
144MHz
|
FM
|
KM6RBB
| |
28/Apr/2018
|
20:21
|
W6/CT-247
|
144MHz
|
FM
|
K6CAW
| |
28/Apr/2018
|
20:22
|
W6/CT-247
|
144MHz
|
FM
|
N6VHF
| |
28/Apr/2018
|
20:29
|
W6/CT-247
|
14MHz
|
SSB
|
W0MNA
| |
28/Apr/2018
|
20:33
|
W6/CT-247
|
14MHz
|
SSB
|
K9IR
| |
28/Apr/2018
|
20:34
|
W6/CT-247
|
14MHz
|
SSB
|
W7TAO
| |
28/Apr/2018
|
20:36
|
W6/CT-247
|
14MHz
|
SSB
|
W5ODS
| |
28/Apr/2018
|
20:36
|
W6/CT-247
|
14MHz
|
SSB
|
VA2MO
| |
28/Apr/2018
|
20:37
|
W6/CT-247
|
14MHz
|
SSB
|
W9MRH
| |
28/Apr/2018
|
20:37
|
W6/CT-247
|
14MHz
|
SSB
|
WB0KIU
| |
28/Apr/2018
|
20:39
|
W6/CT-247
|
14MHz
|
SSB
|
W0ERI
| |
28/Apr/2018
|
20:40
|
W6/CT-247
|
14MHz
|
SSB
|
NW7E
| |
29/Apr/2018
|
00:06
|
W6/CT-067
|
144MHz
|
FM
|
KA6DUH
| |
29/Apr/2018
|
00:08
|
W6/CT-067
|
14MHz
|
SSB
|
NW7E
| |
29/Apr/2018
|
00:08
|
W6/CT-067
|
14MHz
|
SSB
|
VA2MO
| |
29/Apr/2018
|
00:09
|
W6/CT-067
|
14MHz
|
SSB
|
N4EX
| |
29/Apr/2018
|
00:09
|
W6/CT-067
|
14MHz
|
SSB
|
K9IR
| |
29/Apr/2018
|
00:10
|
W6/CT-067
|
14MHz
|
SSB
|
KF7AXB
| |
29/Apr/2018
|
00:11
|
W6/CT-067
|
14MHz
|
SSB
|
K3TCU
| |
29/Apr/2018
|
00:12
|
W6/CT-067
|
14MHz
|
SSB
|
NS1TA
| |
29/Apr/2018
|
00:13
|
W6/CT-067
|
14MHz
|
SSB
|
KG5PUL
|
Loadout for today:
●
30’ of coax feed line
● 3 L of water (8
lb)
● SOTA Dog (she wanted to stay at home today)
● iPhone with All
Trails, MotionX GPS and sota goat
● Treking poles
● Sleeping bag and extra food for the extended trip.
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