If you follow my blog (ON7DQ Blog ), you may have read a few funny stories that happened on the summit of Höchsten, DM/BW-854.
This year I activated that summit together with Karlo @9A3BKF and Stefan @HB9HCS, but nothing strange happened there … it was a successful activation for the three of us.
A few days later, on June 26th, I wanted to activate Weisstannenhöhe DM/BW-014. I had studied the track by Markus @HB9BRJ, so I didn’t expect any problems.
I parked my car at the “Wanderparkplatz” (GPS 47.929588, 8.127853), in position ‘1’ on the map below, and first ate my lunch. Then I started walking and I wanted to go a little further than Markus, to the shelter near the summit, since that saved me from carrying a chair or table.
I followed the track seen below.
Just as I was at the point where I had to go left from the gravel road into a narrow and rocky forest track (see point 1 above), a car came driving up the last part of the gravel road, honking like mad.
At first I thought they had some urgent business, and I stepped aside. But then the car halted, and a clearly excited lady (noo, not in ’that’ way … 
) asked if I was the owner of the car with the Belgian license plate.
Of course I was, and since I drove a brand new car, I thought “Oh no! Something happened to my car ?”
But no, the reason was something else. I had parked in front of some trees that were to be picked up that afternoon. The lady said “didn’t you see that you may not park there? It is clearly indicated in big letters on the trees!”.
Huh? I had not seen anything.
Anyway, the lady said “Get in, I’ll drive you down to the parking spot, to move your car”.
Now on that last part of gravel road it is impossible to turn a car, so she had to drive backward for a while until she could turn at point 2 on the map above. Then she drove at quite a dangerous speed to the parking lot. The car looked like a Citroen Berlingo (I forgot what brand it was), and had no airco, so I was sweating like hell.
While she was driving, she also got a phone call from her husband, who clearly was also excited (about his trees …), and she shouted back at him “I found him, I found him!” ( in German of course).
At the parking, I looked for the sign she had talked about, and indeed , there were some crooked letters on the trees, painted with yellow paint, but the lady had to agree that the letters were hardly readable … too bad I didn’t have the time to take a picture, since I needed to move my car. It was OK to put it at position ‘2’ (on the first picture).
But now comes the best part: the lady must have felt compassion for this old and sweaty man, carrying a heavy backpack … so she offered to drive me back to the point where she picked me up !
This is the first time I got a taxi ride to a summit (or at least part of the way). All in all, I may have lost only 15 minutes or so.
Being polite (as I always am, haha), I told her it was OK to drop me off at ‘point 2’ above, so that she could safely turn her car.
After that I reached the shelter without further interruptions and had a nice activation.
In the picture you can see my “all-in-one” KX3 setup, it contains a 4S2P battery, automatic voltage reducer, a cooling fan, logbook and pen, memory controller, a headset and 2 CW keys (PalmPico and homebrew backup paddle) and a small digital clock. The only connection I have to make at the summit is the antenna. It saves some time, and above all, it avoids the plugging and unplugging of a lot of connectors each time.
Back at my car, I saw that the trees had indeed gone. End of story.
More to come on my blog when I find the time to make a report about my 10 day road trip with 20 summits, visit to the Hamradio and the SOTA Dinner.
73,
Luc ON7DQ
And after all, not everyone can say they set off twice for the same activation - once on foot and once by car - the same way 
