Today’s summit is W7A/AE-016 (Blue Peak). It’s located south of Hanagan’s meddow off of highway 191 (previously known as 666). The road to the actual tailhead is a little over 4 miles. There’s a parking area at the trailhead and the road was pretty rocky.

The trail brings you up the north side ofa small mountain just to the west of the destination and it provided some nice views. It’s fairly easy hike of ~1.3 miles with a total gain of 486 feet.

The top is overgrown so it’s a bit hard to get good views here. There is an old fire lookout tower on top that probably had some terrific views back in the day. The tower doesn’t look like it’s been used in over 10 years.

Setup was farely simple but I wasn’t really able to get any shade. No big one, I set my chair up in a semi-clear area and got to work. At one point, as I was straining to hear another operator on another summit, a hunting dog came up on me and started liking my ear. I was a little startled but not too bad. He was the sweetest little hunting dog I’ve ever seen with tons of energy. He was with a father and son team hunting grouse. I talked to the gentlement for a bit about hunting, the dog, radio and the country. By the time I got back to the radio, the other summits dried up, so I packed up and headed back to the car.

Rather than go strait home, I drove further down the Mogollon Rim to the trailhead for tomorrow’s expedition. My hiking partner, Dale, mentioned that the trail was closed. When I called the Alpine Ranger office they didn’t see any closures. I didn’t want to come all the way down here and find it closed at the crack of dawn tomorrow so I thought I would double check. Dale was right, the trail was closed due to a recent fire in the area. The reason Alpine didn’t know about it was that it was part of the Clifton office. No problem, Dale had an alternate for us.

In total, I worked 27 stations on CW from the summit, got a couple of summit-to-summit contacts and enjoyed the hike.

Expedition Summary

SOTA summit:W7A/AE-016 (Rose Peak), AZ
Points:10
Activation Date: 2020-Sep-19
Unique: Yes
Activation No: 203
Call sign used: N1CLC
Radios: KX2
Antennas: LNR Endfedz MTR
Band/Modes used: 20m, 40m, CW (morse) SSB (voice)
Cell Data: Verizon
Miles Hiked: 2.86 mi
Hiked Elevation Gain: 486

Contacts:

Date:19/09/2020 | Summit:W7A/AE-016 (Blue Peak) | Call Used:N1CLC | Points: 10

Time	Callsign	Band	Mode	Notes
17:19	WD6ND	7MHz	CW
17:25	K6ARK	7MHz	CW
17:26	NW7E	7MHz	CW
17:27	K6LDQ	7MHz	CW
17:28	WH6OS	7MHz	CW
17:29	W7GA	7MHz	CW
17:30	W6DT	7MHz	CW
17:31	K6QCB	7MHz	CW
17:34	KX0R	7MHz	CW
17:35	KI5WA	7MHz	CW
17:39	K6YK	7MHz	CW
17:49	K9VD	14MHz	CW
17:49	W0MNA	14MHz	CW
17:50	N2ESE	14MHz	CW
17:51	W0ERI	14MHz	CW
17:53	K0LAF	14MHz	CW
17:53	W7HO	14MHz	CW
17:54	VE7HI	14MHz	CW
17:55	N1AIA	14MHz	CW
17:56	VE7JH	14MHz	CW
17:57	AB6SO	14MHz	CW
17:58	NS7P	14MHz	CW
17:59	KD8DE	14MHz	CW
18:00	K4MF	14MHz	CW
18:01	N7CNH	14MHz	CW
18:02	W2SE	14MHz	CW
18:09	VE2DDZ	14MHz	CW