Ullswater from G/LD-043 Hallin Fell summit taken on 18 May 2022 by my son Dominic
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Many of these photos are simply stunning. Unfortunately for me…… I’m yet to visit a summit higher than 800m but in the meantime, here’s my favourite:
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This is one of my favorites, both for the photo and the memories. It is Barb-AE7AQ admiring Sphinx Peak (W7M/FS-010) from my operating position on Cliff Mountain (W7M/FS-009), which is a high point on the Chinese Wall in the Bob Marshall Wilderness (Montana).
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This was my 2nd of two eight point summits that I have ever done. (Photo taken by ZL3MR who was my guide on this one.) Dobson Peak ZL3/CB-197
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I think my favourite photos are the ones I never managed to take. For example, the activation of ZL3/CB-390 early last winter. An unassuming 6-pointer 400m above Brass Monkeys Bivouac.
Early snow had gone through the week before, probably the second fall of the season, but had melted off the north-facing front faces. Despite which I took the ice-axe and crampons along for a 3-4 day circuit of the ranges between the Victoria and Sumner Forest parks. The climb to pt1683m from the biv is straight-forward on tussock faces, but once there things became more challenging. There was no ‘summit’ as such just a crumbling ridgeline topping bluffs dropping into the valley to the north-west. The south-east face was more inviting, a steep snow/ice face dropping into a basin 100 below.
The first challenge was deploying gear. With crampons digging into the steep face, I managed to cut out a small platform in the snow onto which I could remove my pack without loosing it. The mast guy rope was deployed to tether the pack onto this platform - half way through a 3-4 day trip I was not keen on losing it.
One end of the 40m EFHW tied to the same anchor, I walked it out across the sheer face, pegging the far end into steep, and thankfully ice-crusted snow Returning to the knot on the wire that marks the centre-point I was able to use the shaft of the ice-axe to create a 1’ deep tight hole into which the SOTA-pole fitted snugly, avoiding the need for the guyropes that were busy tethering my gear. No obvious way of stopping the mast from departing down-slope has yet occurred to me, should it fall, so it was a nervous deployment - but finally, after a couple of traverses of the steep face to adjust end-positions I got the antenna up.
Due to bitter, gusty winds on the ridgeline, all this occurred 10m down-slope, SE from the summit - not the ideal deployment, but viable. I then cut a second ice-platform with the ice-axe on which a drybag formed an impervious mat for the radio and amp. The ice-axe hammered into the ice as an anchor, the antenna cable was looped round the shaft to prevent loss-of-radio gear down the face. Then, toe-points kicked into the face a meter or 2 below my operating position, I proceeded to power up and make my required 4 contacts over the space of an uncomfortable 13 minute activation.
An amateur, toe-kicked into a sheer face and clinging to the head of a well-buried ice-axe; operating an HF set anchored by fluorescent guy-lines onto a small white-ice platform cut into a sheer face; beneath a crumbling black ridgeline, curls of spin-drift curling over the brow above against an otherwise bluebird sky. How I’d love a photo of that activation.
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But of the pics I did take, maybe my 1st winter 10-pointer - Taylor Range, ZL3/CB-102. For simply conveying the magnificence of being all the way up there in midwinter, surrounded by that vast mountain-scape, on a bluebird day.
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I was impressed by the cloud just touching Mt Beerwah a few weeks ago. This photo was taken from Mt Ngungun nearby. Both are SOTA summits.
Andrew VK1DA/VK2DA
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