The last activation of 2014 was in the always nice company of my SOTA mentor and mate Ignacio - EA2BD.
This time we choosed a not too distant from our QTH Summit, which was well known by Ignacio, so I was able to relax and follow him without having to concentrate on the path or the GPS track.
We drove to the Little village of Errea and parked at the highest part.
The temperature was a couple degrees below zero so every patch of water on the road or the field were frozen. One of them at the parking spot made me slip and I almost fell down before starting the hike.
The sky was blue from Wall to Wall, so we would have a nice sunshine.
As soon as we started hiking, Ignacio showed me the way to follow.
We soon reached a level with some little snow remaining on ground.
As we were gaining height, some nice views of the surrounding summits became available.
After a short cut with a pretty steep slope we joined the following dirt road, which we took and followed:
By this height the whole ground was covered by a thin layer of snow.
Following youâll see some few nice views taken during the ascent.
Well, it was time to continue our hike to the summit:
At this point, we left the dirt road and took this path up.
Here, we were almost reaching the summit:
We got to the trig point 15 minutes before Ignacioâs alerted start time, so we started to set-up.
I set-up at the trig point and the worst thing was that I didnât want to sit down on the snow, as I had done two days before at Mt. Arangoiti Summit with not very good results to my bottom area, so I did all activation in the position youâll see in the pictures. I think the word in English might be âcringedâ or âsquattingâ but Iâm not sure. Any help, please?
This position was definitely as bad as sitting down on the snow. This time my bottom wasnâ t frozen but the lower part of my back was very, very bad after 2 hours of activation. A portable seat will be my next SOTA purchase,
The activation went very well and this time I used a pencil, so no issues with pen semi-frozen ink.
I only worked 30m CW and 12m CW, plus very few QSOs on 40m SSB for specific scheduled QSOs with Manuel (EA2DT) plus the very pleasant S2S QSOs with Ăngel EA/M0HDF/P and Eva EA/M0HJV/P who were activating EA5/CS-020.
All in all I logged 45 QSOs, 34 on 30m, one of which was a S2S with OK/PB2T/P activating OK/KA-003 in the very cold and snowy condition he has shown us on this Reflector, so thanks a lot for your call, and 8 on 12m, one of which was a S2S with LA1ENA/P activating LA/TM-049.
When the pile-ups had dried out, I searched and tried S2S QSOs without success with other activators on 20m and 17m, while we waited for Ăngel and Eva to show up from EA5/CS-020 and try S2S QSO.
This happened a few minutes after 11 utc and Ignacio was away of me so just myself completed the S2S QSO with Ăngel and Eva on 40m SSB. Thank you!
Ignacio set-up a few meters further and he mainly worked 20m:
After another successful joint activation, we packed up and before leaving the summit, here is the satisfied operators picture:
And some views from this bushy Summit:
Despite the nice sunshine and the temperature rise above freezing, the snow remained on the ground on our way down:
Finally let me share with you this nice view taken on our way down.
Thank you very much for all your calls, QSOs and your company in this last activation of the year.
Weâll be looking forward to catching you again soon from some other Summit in the new year 2015.
HNY and best 73 de Guru - EA2IF