Today was final redemption day. I went back to Eagle Peak (W6/SC-156 - Eagle Peak) with a working radio
and completed my “activation”. Once I completed that, I headed
over to Stonewall Peak (W6/SC-029 - Stonewall Peak)
to get a second peak and activation in.
I had planned to do this as I always wanted to do a double. I had the day off for Presidents Day so why
not.
I was itching to get back to Eagle Peak to
complete what I started Saturday and tick a new summit off my list. As I mentioned in my previous post, I drove
1.5 hours to the start of the hike, hiked 2 miles to the top of the mountain,
setup my equipment, plugged everything in and then realized I was missing the
power cord for the radio. I left it on
the workbench at home. I aborted the
second summit that day. This trip was
all about checking that mistake off the list and working to see if I could get
two activations in one day.
I was watching the weather forecast
closely. The forecast was for snow and
rain in my area of operations when I checked Sunday morning with clearing
forecast Monday morning. The forecast
started back off that prediction Sunday night so there was hope. When I looked out the window from our bedroom
Monday morning, (you can see a hundred miles to the mountains from there), it
looked very questionable. I loaded up at
6:30AM and headed out anyway given the forecast showed it would clear throughout
the day but possibly rain / snow later in the day.
As I drove up, I listened to some guys on the
Lyons Peak repeater and a ham just east of Alpine mentioned slight
drizzle. There was light drizzle on the
way up the freeway but it looked like it was going to blow out. I exited the freeway, made my way over to
Boulder Creek road that would take me to the parking lot. There was very pretty light snow coming
down. By the looks of it though, it
would blow out of the area pretty quickly.
As I dropped back down and got into the parking lot, it was blowing and
drizzling rain. I decided to wait for it
to blow out of the area and I didn’t have to wait more than 15 minutes. There were a couple of other cars there
waiting to hike to the Three Sisters Falls (I’d like to check them
out sometime). As soon as the weather
broke, we all hit the trail. There were
a couple of guys in gym shorts and very light jackets. They were cold! They told me they were expecting warm
weather. Obviously they didn’t check
weather forecast for Descanso.
It was a bit windy and cold. I put on four layers and my heavy
gloves. After about a mile, I removed a
layer and switched to the light gloves which I eventually put away as things
warmed up. It was a very pretty morning,
the ground was a tad damp and perfect for a hike. I ran into some girls that were taking
pictures at the top of the first peak. I
had them take one of me given the nice background and they asked how much
further the falls were... I explained that they missed the turn. It’s marked with a large stick in the ground
on the trail with an arrow and “water” labeled under it. They had to hike back .75 miles or less so
no big deal. You can actually see the
falls when you get to the first rise after the parking lot. Setup was as easy as Saturday except I had to
guy off the antenna due to the wind. I spotted myself and the contacts came
easy. Some other hikers arrived with
dogs who started chasing each other around and almost took out the
antenna. Sulu was definitely up for the
treats one of the owners was handing out.
She looked so funny as she went over to the lady, sat down, and then
just stared at her. I would have hung
around a little longer and made some tea with the JetBoil but I wanted to hit
the other peak before any weather came in.
I packed up and bugged out. (My route)
On my way to Stonewall Peak, I stopped at my
favorite Mexican food restaurant, Veronica’s Kitchen in Descanso, and picked up the special of the
day, a “super burrito”, made with beans, ground beef, lettuce, cheese and
love. It was awesome. I saved a chunk of it for Sulu who also loved
it (she pretty much eats anything though).
The drive to the State Park parking lot was easy but it cost me
$10 to park. Unfortunately, Sulu wasn’t
allowed on the trail. I’m sure she
didn’t mind. She had her four mile
hike. I gave her some water and she
slept in the car as I headed out.
The hike up was easy. It had a good trail with nothing really
difficult. Snow lined the trail starting
about half way up and the winds had picked up since the first hike. When I summited, I think the winds were about
40 mpg, gusting to 60. I called Jeanette so that I could do a quick
test of the radio. I wanted to see if I
could contact the house from the top with my handheld. It definitely worked but it was a bit
scratchy. The signal was probably
getting to the house by bouncing off other mountains. I’m pretty sure there were a couple of
mountains in the way. During this goofing around, I managed to drop my cell phone while on the platform perched on the cliff. If it had slid 6 more inches, it would have gone over the cliff to a most certain death.
The howling winds made it cold, very cold. The temperature was no higher than 35 degrees and by my calcs, the wind chill made it about 17 F. Setting up a HF antenna on the peak was a nogo so I moved off the top and out of the way of hikers. My spot had some shelter from the wind and I used some dead tree limbs to brace the antenna and strapped it down. I had made two contacts already with my handheld, KM6LKP, and Adam, KJ6HOT. Adam offered to spot me on SOTA watch web site so I worked quickly to get going. I had to move the antenna once to find a better spot so it took me a while.
The howling winds made it cold, very cold. The temperature was no higher than 35 degrees and by my calcs, the wind chill made it about 17 F. Setting up a HF antenna on the peak was a nogo so I moved off the top and out of the way of hikers. My spot had some shelter from the wind and I used some dead tree limbs to brace the antenna and strapped it down. I had made two contacts already with my handheld, KM6LKP, and Adam, KJ6HOT. Adam offered to spot me on SOTA watch web site so I worked quickly to get going. I had to move the antenna once to find a better spot so it took me a while.
I had on my heavy gloves and cap and was still
cold. I put on my final layer and fired
up the radio. I contacted Adam on the
14.337 and I was off and running. The
location and terrain were not ideal for HF antennas but I did make a few
contacts. A really big wave of static
interference moved in on my frequency and I couldn’t hear anything but horrid
high pitched static. I waited it out
once at the beginning but this was not going to work and people were still
trying to contact me. I looked for a
lower frequency that would work and found one.
I was about to post my new frequency on the web or ask Adam if he could
when I realized my lips were going numb and there was a bit of snow
falling. I was cold and it was time to
head down the mountain.
I was surprised that people were still coming
up to the peak as I started to head out.
It was past 3PM and getting colder.
At about halfway down the mountain, I passed two teenage boys in short
sleeved shirts!. It was definitely
cooling off and I wonder if they made it to the top without freezing. When I got to the car, I pulled out the
JetBoil and made some hot tea. I thought
about doing it on the mountain but I figured I would enjoy drinking it more as
I sat in the car. When I fired up the
car, the thermometer said it was 32 degrees.
Sulu was fine. She probably had a
nice nap. The cold ground didn’t seem to
bug her. I almost made a second mug but
opted for seat heaters instead. (My route)
It was a good day. The weather was cold and windy but still
pretty. I hiked 8.6 miles and got a
double summit.
Contacts
Eagle Peak
Stonewall Peak
Loadout for today:
●
3 L of water (8 lb)
●
SOTA Dog for the first summit
●
iPhone with All Trails, MotionX GPS and sota
goat
●
Hiking poles
REFERENCE
73s,
-- Chris Claborne, N!CLC
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