Motivation
My last activation was on February 25th. Then we stayed and worked at home during the lockdown measurements applied in Spain due to CoVid-19 pandemic. Since May 25th the government applied phase-2 of the lockdown exit process and we were allowed to go and practice sports in the nature within our region in Navarra.
My wife suggested me going to visit Bardenas, a natural park in the very South of our region and, without any discussion, I grabbed my tiny MTR and planned a very short activation there. That would be a short one in a “short summit”, as Mt. Yugo is one of the low height mountains listed in EA2/NV, and so far has been very few times activated.
Activation date: May 30th 2020
Driving directions
You can drive up to the hermitage of Virgen del Yugo in the country side, located near the village of Valtierra.
- Drive from Pamplona by motorway AP-15, heading South towardsTudela.
- Leave the motorway in exit nr. 13 and drive towards Valtierra (road nr. N-113, then NA-134).
- Exit right towards Valtierra, road NA-7564.
- Drive to reach the hermitage of Virgen del Yugo and park. Total distance from Pamplona: 88 km.
Climb
The path starts right after the parking following a dirt road heading soatheast. It surrounds an adventure park called Sendaviva. Althought this is an easy walk, the climb is very wavy, going up and down consecutively, thus being a bit tiring and following this profile:
- Trail is 2,8 kilometer long (one way).
The scenery is a mix of flowers near the path and a semi desertic land far away:
The summit is indicated by a geodetic vertex in the middle of a crop field, at 498 m a.s.l.
Activation
We arrived in the summit by midday and it was hot; 29Âş C. The summit had no trees at all and we decided to eat first. To protect against sunburnt, we used an emergency blanket that we installed on top of our mountain sticks, and used a couple stones to hold it in the trig point.
After lunch, I installed the aerial inverted vee and sat under the shade again to begin calling CQ.
- Equipment: TRX Mountain Topper MTR-3B. EFHW antenna and carbon pole 5 m long.
Batteries: 3 Li-Ion 18650 batteries rated at 2600 mAh.
The CQ WW WPX contest was in progress so I had anticipated to be running on 30m CW. I started cqing and was soon chased by F5JKK; Erik was very kind and raised a spot for me. I kept on calling and logged 7 chasers closing the band with a call from HB9EKO/P S2S in HB/ZH-015. Thanks Jens!
I decided to give 20m a try. Band was crowded but I managed to find a gap near QRP frequency to start calling. I just logged G3VXJ there.
Afterwards I tried to run on 7 MHz but as soon as I sent some dits I saw on my power meter that I had very low power out. I checked my battery and discovered I had around 6 Volts, therefore I stopped and called it a day.
All in all a short activation this time, but I didn’t want my wife waits for too long…
Despite it’s been a short activation, I was very happy to do it after 94 days without any SOTA from my side. I think I had never been inactive for so long before…
Bardenas; a desertic natural park
This curious natural park was declared a Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO, where the erosion of its clay, chalk and sandstone soils has sculpted capricious forms in the landscape to create almost lunar effects, full of gullies, plateaux and solitary hills. Its landscape is opposite to what we find in the north of Navarra, full of green valleys and higher mountains.
Bardenas has inspired painters and writers and has been the scene of TV adverts, music videos and films. Temperature can be extreme in summer time, approaching 40ÂşC max: really hot!
Let me share a couple pictures to get the image of what’s in there:
73 de Ignacio
