Since New Mexico campgrounds are still closed for overnight stays, a friend and I decided to drive to Mogote Campground in southern Colorado from Albuquerque for a Father’s Day outing with our kids. I looked for nearby summits and found W0C/RG-149 just begging me to do an activation. Looking at Google, I thought I could drive reasonably close by taking County Road 7.2 off of Hwy 17. We left the campground about 9:30am with 5 eager people piled into the Honda Odyssey. Their voices were surprisingly loud as I pulled off the highway and bounced along the road to the point of ascension. I attempted a few hundred feet of the uphill portion when fear of bottoming out or having a rock puncture critical portions of the undercarriage forced me to back down. We parked 2.7 miles from the summit, and I offered everyone a chance to return to the campground. The hike didn’t deter anyone, so we set off on foot. 60% of us made it to the summit. We saw antelope, horny toads, and two rattle snakes on our trek. We also encountered a notable number of mufflers, tail pipes, and various car parts strewn along the way indicating I made the right choice in leaving my wife’s Odyssey at the bottom of the hill.
I was about an hour and 15 minutes past my posted alert, but I setup my SOTAbeams band hopper and noticed WA7JTM was transmitting on a peak in Arizona. I made a quick S2S with him, then waited a few minutes to let his pileup subside thinking the same chasers would pounce on my call shortly. When I started calling, KX0R quickly responded on another summit. I made contact with K8TE near my home town, then a mighty rushing wind turned what had been a pleasant breeze into a gale that overpowered the signals in my headphones. I had two calls come in that I just couldn’t discern from the background noise caused by the wind hitting my surround the ear headphones. I finally heard WU7H from Washington, then couldn’t raise any other signals that were strong enough for me to hear. Thankfully I had 4 with two S2S. Moments after that final call my mast came crashing down just nicking my right shoulder and hitting my daugher’s foot. I’m not sure what failed. The mast was still fully extended, and the guy wire still had a loop. The plastic piece that holds the balun is broken, but it is hard to imagine how that happened in the air. I also managed to damage the mast base because I was sliding the sections in with the mast off the ground rather than vertical and I punched through the bottom.
Mogote is the peak on the right.
Fortunately the temperatures were mild. I should have taken more water. The 9,800 ft. elevation also surprised me. I hadn’t really noticed the elevation thinking it was only a 4 point summit that wouldn’t be that high. This turned out to be a tough one unless you have an off road vehicle with some generous ground clearance. The hike is wide open, so plan for sun exposure the entire trek. Fortunately we had cloud cover. The remaining 40% survived without too much grumbling, and the cool waters of the Conejos River relieved the sore muscles.
I was wondering how others deal with extreme wind noise other than the obvious choice of getting off the crazy windy peak? I don’t think I could have setup in that wind, but it came up suddenly with no warning. By the time I was leaving with my broken equipment it calmed down again…