The weather did not improve at all. It got worse actually. When I started from Kelly Butte trailhead started to drizzle. On the summit I got some sleet with strong wind. Luckily twenty meter was much better, but still in bad condition.
After my failure on Ararat, where I only made 3 Qs with my handheld radio on 144 MHz, I am looking for some easy summit. I can only blame myself, as I was too tired to assemble the Buddipole. If it is easy, then let’s do 3 or 4 summits straight away. As always, despite the long and thorough intelligence, things did not work out as planned at the first place. However, I bagged two summits out of the four, but let’s see the details.
The goats and I made a last minute decision on Friday night to get a SOTA fix. Saturday morning we hiked Little Baldy, near Alger, WA. If you're heading north on I-5 towards Canada or Bellingham, this is right off the freeway. Take Exit 242, turn Right (East) and the trailhead/parking lot will be clearly visible on your left in about 1/2 mile.
K7ATN and N7LKL activated Washington's Larch Mountain on Saturday, 2/2/13. We hiked in on the forest service road from the Larch Corrections Center side. (Directions below) We were able to drive up the service road quite a ways but hiked the last 1.5 miles with approximately 1200 feet gain. Weather conditions were excellent - sunny and not too cold. We were on the summit from about 10:00 to 1:00 during which time the sun softened the snow considerably.
First Activation of Mount Rose, Washoe County, Nevada - Ace Number 1.
The reference to Aces is because of this mountain's proximity to Reno / Lake Tahoe (Nevada side) proximity to gambling casino's.
This is a trail hike up to summit of Mount Rose, 10,766 feet elevation. Trail is about 10.6 miles round trip., with 2,000 feet +/- elevation gain.
The views are amazing!: Reno, Nevada; Carson Valley; Lake Tahoe region and northern Sierra Nevada mountain range.
A nice activation winter or summer, Frog Lake Buttes has that strange plural name that is so easy to get wrong. Only a bit more than an hour from Portland, it's one of our recommended Oregon activations. Hiking, mountain biking, snowshoeing, skiing or even driving are all ways to get there - depending on the season of course.
Spent the weekend at Eagle Crest just outside Redmond, Oregon and decided to activate Cline Butte which is nearby on MLK Day. Left the trailhead at 08:00 with very cold (25 degrees) clear conditions with patches of snow on the ground. Followed a road most of the way to the top then cut off on a jeep trail the remainder of the way. Trip up is a little less than a mile with a 800 ft elevation gain. I added a map from Google Earth with the route I took up.
Back in early 2009 when I was working with Les Allwood/G3VQO in setting up the various state-based Associations for W7, I indicated that I would "turn over" Associations to "SOTA active and knowledgeable" individuals who are residents in those states. This was in keeping with the SOTA MT preference of resident Association Managers where feasible.
First was Bruce/N7RR for W7W-Washington where I turned over all the data spreadsheets and a completed ARM document. Bruce went on to add his input and changes and submitted those docs about 6 months later.
Phil crossed over into the rarefied SOTA air of Super Sloth-dom today with more than 10k Chaser points! Wow!
Great job Phil! Now onward to double SuperSloth!
73, Guy/N7UN
Activated w7I/CI-139 Kimama Butte on 7 Jan 2013 on the way to SLC for work. Kimama Butte is the remnanats of an old volcanic hill located 21 miles SE south of Craters of the Moon NP and 16 miles north of Burley Idaho. For those who study tectonic plate movement, Yellowstone was here 8 million years ago. Acces via N1150W off I-84 and cross thru obvious cattle guard. Drove about 200 yards in 4wd up the hill then decided to walk the rest.