SOTA Safety TIP #2 - Know Your Limits

What

Knowing your limits means knowing what the limits of your skills, capabilities and gear are.  When you plan, or are on the trail, be prepared to push the ABORT Button.  Your assessment includes training, mountaineering skills, assessing your fitness, how much water you have,  layers of clothing, weather, and mission appropriate gear like micro spikes, crampons, ice axe, etc.  Don’t forget to assess the skills of your group.  Many times, SOTA operators are the ones leading the pack, so look out for your team, and don’t let them exceed their limits.

SOTA Safety Tips Index

 All The Ham Ninja’s SOTA Safety Tips Index

SOTA Safety Tips is a weekly series of quick tips to remember to improve safety of the hobby.  This was inspired by the SoCal SOTA group’s meetings on this topic and will be sourced from my own and others' experience.  Don’t forget, you also need to support your group and others with this knowledge.  I’ll keep these as short as possible.  Send feedback to safetytips@HamNinja.com.

I am not an expert mountaineer, nor a medical expert, but I've had training.  The most important thing I can say right here is to stay within your capabilities and appetite for risk (mine is not that high).  Take advice from the experts in mountaineering and wilderness first aid. Remember, you may have to help someone else on the trail, why not enable yourself to do that. 

Nothing you do is completely "safe", but you can lower the risk.
Below is an Index of Tips Published to date.

SOTA Safety Tip #1 - Bring Plenty Of Water

 What

As we roll into summer, bringing enough water really is the number one safety tip.  SOTA operators are always trying to reduce the weight of their pack and a big part of that is the amount of water they carry. The Mayo Clinic recommends 3.7 L of fluids for men, 2.7 for women per day.  Temperature and exercise raises that minimum significantly.  

Road To Goat

The “Road To Goat”, an epic tale of two SOTA operators working across northern Arizona and New Mexico to camp, hike, and do Summits On The Air (SOTA) with their ham radios.  They encounter long drives, rough primitive roads, freezing temperatures, tall mountains, wildfire smoke, closed roads, closed-off summits,  and horrible solar conditions to battle while trying to make radio contacts, make new friends, and contend with ferocious winds.  One operator  is on the hunt for his “SOTA Goat” award.  He wants to earn enough mountain top activation points to exceed the 1000 required for the Goat award.  All these factors test both men’s endurance, radio skills, vehicle strength, and ability to come up with a good wisecrack under pressure.  How can they accomplish 19 summits in 6 days and make this happen?    Read on to find out. (Click on Images for Larger)