Hot soup and an anticipated Christmas dessert in EA2/NV-070

Motivation

Today (December 6th 2022) is a bank holiday in Spain, due to the 44th anniversary of the establishment of the Spanish Constitution, core of the political system in EA.

Being free from work, this is a good oportunity for a SOTA activation. I checked the weather forecast and, despite today it is cold and wet, it will get even worse in the coming days, therefore I decide to do an activation.

I choose a local 4 pointer to grab the +3 winter bonus. Is it cold outside? Let’s get a flask with a very hot chicken soup to neutralize the low temperature in the summit!

The climb

I started parking near the village of Muniain. From this point it is a 2,2 km trek and 330 m elevation gain.

It was foggy and the plants and trees were wet with the night dew. Anyway, I grabbed my umbrella just in case and started walking.

Despite the weather, I still enjoyed the walk over the fallen leaves through the magic looking heart of this enchanted forest. Let me share some pics of the ascent with the bright autumn colour contrast:

The activation

The summit, indicated by a small hermitage, was also covered by a medium fog and I couldn’t see the landscape. I had a bit of precaution not to fall over the surrounding cliff.

Hopefully, it wasn’t windy at all and I setup my trapped EFHW inverted vee and my LNR LD-5 HF rig. Before starting and getting too concentrated with the radio I took some sip of my hot soup; I felt warmer and energized for the activation!

I ran on 14 MHz SSB and 10 MHz CW, and had a high SWR on 7 MHz so I avoided this one.

At a point the fog dissolved for some minutes and I could make these pictures:

I had plenty of calls and closed my log with 61 qso and 11 S2S. Thanks everybody!
I also explained a bit of ham radio to other mountaineers that showed up nearby.

Gastronomical tip of the day

To celebrate the nice day, before packing, I grabbed a Christmas dessert stick. This one is called “turron” and is distributed only for Christmas time.

The recipe includes mainly triturated almonds and honey. It is very sweet and provides a good amount of calories for the mountain.

This is eaten as a dessert after the main Christmas meals, cut in slices. I usually keep some tablets for the rest of the year. A similar dessert is also eaten in Portugal and Italy.

It seems that the Arabs brought it to Southern Europe,and there are references of this recipe in Spain from XV century onwards.

They bake also other variety with chocolate and some other flavours.

73 de Ignacio.

28 Likes

Hello Ignacio, thanks for sharing your activation report with great photos. A great read. :+1: :grinning:

Merry Xmas to you and your family and stay safe. :santa:

Geoff vk3sq

Excellent report and great photos Iggy. The turron looks nice, and possibly similar to some varieties of Indian sweetmeat. I’d certainly like to try that sometime.

I was hoping to see photos of the soup too - especially if it was a homemade Spanish style chicken broth!

Despite being notorious for doing so, I haven’t taken a flask of soup on a SOTA trip with me in a long time. This thread has inspired me to get out for some winter SOTA with my flask over the next few weeks!

Hello Ignacio,
tnx for our S2S from Bückeberg, DM/NS-125 and your fine report and the beautiful pics.


We hope to hear you soon, perhaps the next Monday.
73 Uwe DK8OA and I

1 Like

Great to take us along Ignacio - thanks!

73 Markus

I’m glad you enjoyed the pictures.
I’ve visited this summit many times with all kind of weather. When I saw the fog at the very beginning I thought it would be a boring ascent to the summit this time, but you see I found a more fascinating view than I expected. That’s why it does worth visiting a summit several times, on different seasons…

Hi Tom, you can just see the flask near the radio… But I’m afraid there is no great recipe for you today. All I did was to boil water and add an instant soup envelop.
Really not a wonderfull homemade one but I must confess it was very quick to prepare and its taste was quite good!


It provides 93 kCalories and no noddles this version.

I promise to add a proper meal somewhen and share the recipe here…

Chris, Uwe, thanks for the greetings and nice picture.

See you soon, hopefully weather improves as it’s raining a lot this week.
73 de Ignacio

1 Like

That soup is not quite as exciting as I’d hoped Ignacio… :wink:

I’ll look forward to that! I am a big fan of traditional Spanish and Canarian cuisines. I have even taught myself to make good paella!

3 Likes