More precisely, in search of summer while on vacation. The long heat wave gave way to rainy weather. As usual, it rains on my vacation. This means you have to trust the weather forecasts and plan your route to get away from bad weather.
Fortunately, this tactic works, and not the first season. But even on a trip for several days, you have to travel a long way. This time we planned to visit several regions of the Southern Urals with my companions from Moscow. For 4 days, having covered more than 1000 kilometers on roads of different quality, we had to see the whole variety of local landscapes and nature. And, at the same time, while climbing the mountains, activate new summits!
There were three “New One” activations planned. And, as a reserve, a couple of already activated summits.
I confess that only the smallest part of these plans was realized. For various objective and subjective reasons. But even in such a shortened version, our trip turned out to be very memorable. While climbing the southernmost Ural 8-point summit, I did not know at all about the special callsign issued thanks to the efforts of Marat RA9WJV.
Only after going down to the car I received a phone call from Marat. How did the GSM signal get to the remote mountain valley? Even at the top, the connection was unstable.
But I want to return to the main topic - the activation of summits.!
Karatash, R9U/SO-037 on air.
To these photos I can add only a little:
Fortunately, Karatash is not yet a frequently visited peak. The nature is practically untouched. No trails.
Before this trip I made a new vertical antenna and planned to use it. But already before the ascent, I discovered that I had forgotten to take the cable …
But the spare wire and the ATU in my SOTA transceiver solved an unexpected problem.
An impromptu Set-Up enabled the summit to be activated with a good result of 30 QSOs. 1 S2S QSO, for which special thanks to Jan, OK2PDT. From distant correspondents - JH1FTL. But, of course, this time EU was heard quietly. We spent less than an hour on the summit.
Not far from Mount Karatash there is a 6-point summit - R9U / SO-080. We planned to climb it the next day. But below on its slopes, the locals were mowing the grass and we did not dare to interfere with their work, since the planned ascent route ran through mowed meadows.
The good weather in the area ended and we drove further along our route. We were waiting for the central part of the Southern Urals, where, according to the forecast, sunny weather was supposed to come.
We set up a camp on the bank of the mountain river Maly Inzer and planned to climb 2 summits from here. And use a special callsign.
The gloomy morning of August 13 reminded us. how changeable the weather can be in the mountains and how accurate there may be a forecast.
The water that rose during the night cut off our path through the ford across the river. We were left with only a dirt road through the pass, passable only in dry weather. And we hastened to use this opportunity. The rain found us already at the pass, when we pulled the car from the swampy pit with a winch. We managed to go down before the shower, but my companions will remember the descent on slippery clay like soap for a long time …
73!
Vlad RX9WT
