N1CLC: 2019-03-23 Middle Pk. To Brazil

I wanted to hike Middle Peak again and try going up the north side for the final summit push. The last time I was up there, 11/25/2018, I went up the south side based on the best topo research I could do. It’s been activated a few times so I knew it was doable. During that last hike, I followed a false trail and ended up in a horrid bushwhack to the activation zone, followed by a horrid bushwhack back to the road. After that trip, my SOTA Yoda, K6ARK, said I should have gone to the North side and used the unpublished trail. So that was the mission of the day. I charted out a new course on Alltrails in case I missed the trail...

The weather was beautiful up there today, starting with clear sky then moving to partly cloudy. There was a slight breeze keeping it cool but not cold. I could see the clouds moving up the mountain from the coast. It was nice to be out in the sunshine not freezing my tail off. I found the cairns that marked the trail to the summit (lat/long of 32.98287, -116.60007) and the tail to the summit was 10,000 times easier. For one, that side of the mountain wasn’t nearly as overgrown as the south side, and there was a cut trail that has been heavily used. It’s beginning to get overgrown but not bad. A huge shout out to Adam, K6ARK, who told me about the alternate route.

Once at the top, I contacted KC2GNV on DMR who always likes to do some DMR testing. Last time, he also shot video and I embedded it into my video via a picture in picture. It came out pretty well. I cranked out a smaller video of just this test if you want to check it out here. We ran through a couple of quick comparison tests of DMR vs. analog FM, and I also did some simplex DMR with three other hams in the area, so I had four contacts, officially activating the summit via DMR.

After the DMR test, I switched over to 20 meter band and spotted myself I had a pretty good pileup going. As a bonus, I picked up three summit-to-summit contacts, all up in Oregon.

I was able to net only 3 contacts on 40 meter. I went over to 17 meter to see if I could pick up any south america contacts and then back to 20 to hunt around a bit more. My last contact was HÉLIO, located in Boa Vista-RORAIMA STATE, Brazil. It was nice to end the day with an excellent DX contact.

After the hike I stopped at the junction near Descanso and had a huge turkey club. Today was definitely a good day to hike in the Lagunas and the radio conditions were pretty good.

27 Contacts

Date:23/Mar/2019 Summit:W6/SC-024 (Middle Peak) Call Used:N1CLC Points: 6 Bonus: 0 Delete

Time	Call	Band	Mode	Notes
19:41z	KC2GNV	433MHz	DV
19:47z	AI6CX	433MHz	DV
19:47z	K1CT	433MHz	DV
19:48z	KK6YAE	433MHz	DV
19:49z	K6ARK	14MHz	SSB
20:05z	KD1CT	14MHz	SSB
20:07z	KB5EDR	14MHz	SSB
20:07z	K9IR	14MHz	SSB
20:08z	N4EX	14MHz	SSB
20:09z	KD0MQO	14MHz	SSB
20:09z	WA2USA	14MHz	SSB
20:10z	KI7IOC	14MHz	SSB
20:10z	W4CCH	14MHz	SSB
20:11z	AF7MD	14MHz	SSB	Summit to summit W7O/NC-003
20:14z	N1RCQ	14MHz	SSB
20:14z	N0RZ	14MHz	SSB
20:15z	K3TCU	14MHz	SSB
20:17z	AF7ZT	14MHz	SSB	Summit to summit W7O/NC-036
20:20z	ND0C	14MHz	SSB
20:21z	K9WBZ	14MHz	SSB	Summit to summit W7O/NC-090
20:22z	W9MRH	14MHz	SSB
20:24z	KL4JG	14MHz	SSB
20:24z	N6DNM	7MHz	SSB
20:29z	KE6MT	7MHz	SSB
20:30z	NS7P	7MHz	SSB
20:31z	W6HB	14MHz	SSB
20:43z	PV8AL	14MHz	SSB	Boa Vista-RORAIMA STATE Brazil

W6/SC-024 - Middle Peak

Association:	USA
Region:	Southern Coastal Ranges
Lat / Long / Height:	32.9804°N -116.6005°W 1793m / 5883ft
Locator:	DM12qx Show »
Points / Activations:	6 points, activated 21 times
Latest Activation:	2018-09-23 by K6ARK