Upcoming week of backpacking/activations "W6/NS" (Desolation Wilderness)

Activation Reports Pre-Planning
1

Hello, I’m just preposting my plans for a backpack I am doing starting this weekend and going thru next weekend. I’ve put in alerts on the watcher, but wanted to post here my tentative and doable plans. This is part of a larger project I am doing to activate all the peaks within the Tahoe Rim Trail cooridor. Desolation Wilderness has some 13 peaks within their boundaries, and I have done 4 so far. Next week I plan on knocking off the last nine with a bit of a loop hike thru Desloation.

I’ve already had to edit these dates, but… the current tentative plan is:
8/19: W6/NS-154 (Lost corner Mountain) && W6/NS-390 (7860) 0900-1300 will be activation time range.
8/20: W6/NS-107 “9269” (mid morning, 4 mile dayhike from basecamp)
8/20: W6/NS-105 “9310” (probably mid afternoon)
8/21 Moving day, but I may try and do something with SEQP before I head out.
8/21 or 8/22 will be time dependent, but W6/NS-095 “9420” if 8/21 late evening (8/22 UTC) or morning of 8/22 PST
8/23: W6/NS-377 Mount Price and W6/NS-094 Little Pyramid sometime between 1030-1400 PST
8/24 or 8/25 W6/NS-068 Dick’s peak and W6/SN-036 Mt Tallac will do both in the same day. Again 1030-1600 for Activation range (I am going to stay at this particular location for two days. May actually try a night activation from Tallac since I am camping 1.5 miles from there!

I probably will not have cell service on some of these peaks and those times are approximate, but should be pretty on the mark.

Thanks in advance if you do chase… -73 N6JFD

2

We loved the Tahoe region, and it would be great to get back there some time. Best of luck, Mark. M0NOM

3

Good luck and safe travels. As another backpacking-activator, I look forward especially to reading about your adventures on your blog. David, N3II

4

Have undertaken a few overnight full pack activations in wilderness areas as well. Good luck with your trek.

Cheers Wal

5

Thanks to all that have chimed in… I came out mid week to bring the puppy home and managed to join in with my SAR team while they evac’d a broken ankle subject. The puppy/Lola did well carrying her weeks worth of food and she does love to hike, but I do not think she’s a fan of sleeping on the hard ground, or hail storms. My pack weight when I went in last Friday was about 45 lb with my radio gear. I did some thinking and note taking, and think I have come up with a good reconfiguration for my radio gear… (instead of using an old LowePro Nova camera bag, I"m moving my radio gear into an Osprey 10l mtn bike pack so I have water for my day hikes and no longer hand carrying the gear. One of the peaks I did had one fun descent thru Manzanita and Willow fields… would have been nice to have both hands.
I really do not know WHY i’ve not done this reconfiguration sooner. I’m cutting out three of the peaks but still have W6/NS-068 (Dicks) and W6/SN-036 (Tallac) as my exit summit. Basically going in to setup a base camp that sits in between these two summits. Not sure I can two-fer them both in the same day given how tough Dick’s will be to achieve as a day hike.

I did get NS-154, NS-390 (I think the coordinates for this peak are a touch off for the high point), NS-107, and NS-105 (which I did during the Eclipse on Monday)

Time to get back out there for three more days dog free (and hopefully SAR free) -73

6

That trip was a success, starting to do my blog write up now… I did 6 of the 9 summits, but finally managed my first two-fer on Thursday one of which was a virgin peak :D. (Found a suicide note on that peak as well, not a peak that gets visited frequently…kinda freaky though).