Dear SOTA mates,
The Mount Erga is a quite prominent Summit at just 15Km North-West from my birth town, Pamplona. However, I had never been to it before and I had been thinking about doing it for quite a long time since I joined the SOTA program.
I finally planned a joint ascent today with 2 of my brothers, my 3 kids (11, 9 and 4 years old) my brother’s kid (9) and of course, our dog Lucho.
My QTH is 18Km South of Pamplona with Mount Erreniega (EA2/NV-092) in between, which many times acts as a clima barrier. So it was today, as it was raining in my QTH but not in Pamplona, so we decided to give Mount Erga a try.
This is today’s targetted Summit and the path we followed from the very small village of Aizkorbe. I’ve found this picture on the web but it looks very much as it was today:
The ascent was steep and very steep at some points. However, the kids performed greatfully.
I hope the SOTA seeds I’m trying to plant on them will grow up strong and healthy some day sooner or later.
The ascent path was very nice all the way up through a beautiful oak trees forest, which turned into bleech trees near the Summit. Let me show you some of the pictures I took.
At this point we were almost reaching the Summit:
See the cloudy view of the nearby mountains around, with mount Gaztelu (EA2/NV-099) at the left of the picture and a partial view of village Irurtzun down the hill:
We finally reached the Summit with the trig point:
It was very windy at the Summit and the feel was not pleasant at all. My brothers and the kids left the Summit soon and I remained myself for a quick activation while explaining what I was doing to other mountaneers showing up.
As son as I installed my GP antenna made of 7m long telescopic fishing rod attached to the trig point with 4 radials of about 5 meters each and switched on my FT-817ND, I heard Jana - DG5WU/P working her activation on 14.275 and I immediately gave her a call. We completed the S2S QSO and then I moved 10Kc up, selfspotted and worked 24 stations in 21 minutes, including 2 more S2S QSOs with Mikel - EA2CW/P and Marcial - EA2BDS/P. It was Mikel’s dedicated Summit, as its Locator is IN92cw, 
When the SSB pile up vanished I moved to CW and called CQ on 14.062. Without any selfspot, I quickly got chasers after me and I worked 14 more stations, including 2 more S2S QSOs with DF3MC/P and HB9EWO/P. It had started to rain by the time the CW pile-up vanished so I decided to QRT, pack everything up and descend quickly to join my family down the hill.
All in all 38 QSOs on 20m. Due to the rain, I couldn’t actívate on 30m CW and 2m FM. I’m sorry for any posible chaser who may have missed me because of this.
Thank you very much and I hope to copy you again soon.
Best 73 de Guru - EA2IF
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