Dear all,
this is just a very short, picture-heavy activation report for my take on DL/AL-151 Wertacher Hörnle today. Beautiful solitude, nature, and exercise. It was freakingly cold (-10 deg C or so) and 40m was so noisy / QRN that I was close to giving up with 3 QSOs in the bag, when finally @HA8SSG made it through the noise. Thanks also to @F4WBN @DL8BEL and @M5OTA !
73 de Martin, DK3IT
Beautiful pictures Martin. I guess it was sunrise since I see your skis. I have quite some experience in early morning activations (SSB); it seems chasers consistently wake-up at 8am CET sharp 
So now I plan trips to be ready to activate no earlier than 8am 
Hi Martin
Nice that you’d been lucky – and probably still are, reading your report and looking at the pictures.
Been several time in the region and liking it for SOTA, considering my abilities. This one still is one of my ToDo list.
Enjoy your time off,
and vy 73 de Markus, HB9DIZ
Thanks! It was actually an evening activation - QRC around 17:46Z; back at my car around 19:00Z/20:00CET. The QRN on 40m was really terrible. Did anybody else observe this on the band?
Beautiful pictures! It’s always nice to see the the other end of the QSO.
I can tell you there was HUGE excitement at this end about our contact! Why? This was my second ever on air CW contact. With the first being with my tutor during a CWOps class - this was really my first in the wild! And therefore, obviously, my first ever CW SOTA chase 
Apologies for the dodgy sending, and also not noticing your spot/alert request for slower keying. I tend to be 20 wpm with m a s s i v e spacing. When you came back with my call sign wrong - M5MTA - I didn’t know what to do. Doubtless there is a protocol, but I don’t know it yet! I was worried the pile-up was going to arrive and not give me chance to correct it, but it appears calling you again (badly!) with my call sign twice worked.
It was annoying as the battery was down in my KX2 so only 5W, I could tell you were having trouble hearing and 10W would’ve helped but I was worried if I ran to get my other battery you would be gone! I was back garden portable with an inverted V dipole. Interestingly, the noise seemed less than usual at my end.
Thanks for what, for me, is a very memorable contact!
Tony
Thanks, Tony - I am very glad to have been on the other end of your first SOTA QSO in CW!
As for the CW: That was perfect to copy for me. I actually heard M5OTA correctly, either I just send M instead of O when returning or the third dash was buried beneath the QRN.
It was good that you stayed; I was really close to packing up and quitting around the time of our QSO, because it was so cold, already getting dark, and I was soloing in this beautiful environment.
Very nice photos, Martin. Thanks for sharing! I like this region very much and would like to be there more often.
Glad you got your four QSOs and the points 
on top of this beautiful ski tour.
73, Roman
From my SouthWestern Europe location, I can tell you it’s pretty useless being QRV for SOTA chasing earlier than 9h utc because the Sun is still too low and propagation conditions haven’t yet built for chasing activators in the NorthEast of Europe.
73,
Guru
