Activation report LA/TM-001 Gaustatoppen

This week I activated my first 6-pointer, Gaustatoppen LA/TM-001, which is Telemark County’s highest mountain at 1 883 meters (prominence of 959 meters).

Gaustatoppen seen from below

From the parking lot, you have a choice of an 800 meter climb, or taking an old military railway 800 meters into the mountain core, then funicular (cliff railway) up to approximately 1 800 meters. For this trip I chose to take the railway, as I heard it was a very exciting experience.

The funicular part of Gaustabanen

At the top of the funicular there’s a small cafe and tourist center, with nice stairs made by Nepalese Sherpas. Tthe tourist association estimates that approximately 200 000 tourists will visit this area in 2017.

Nepalese prayer flags near the tourist center

From the tourist center, there’s about 600 lateral meters and 83 altitude meters to the summit. To get there you must traverse a sharp mountain ridge with a boulder field, which was a lot more challenging than I expected, especially while carrying a gear and supplies.

When I first arrived, everything was covered in fog, with a visibility of around 50 meters. Most of the route is very well marked with red paint, approximately every 5 meters, so the navigation was very easy even with the reduced visibility. Luckily the cloud cover lifted a while after I arrived at the summit, and I got a beautiful view of the surrounding area.

The radio tower and tourist center seen from the summit

The activation started very nice with 2-meter FM QSO’s. The longest QSO here was approximately 133 km, with 5W, a SRH-771 antenna and pigtail. After that I rigged my vertical antenna, and started with a S2S to LA3NGA, who kindly let me inherit his frequency. In total, I got 58 QSO’s on 20m and 2m.

Map of QSO’s from LA/TM-001

Thanks for all QSO’s, 73 de LB4FH

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