I failed to fulfill the plan and have properly activated one summit only. They were actually two according to SOTA rules, but I don’t feel particularly proud after making 5 QSOs while at least tens of interested chasers were waiting. Hence I am trying to tell hopefully interesting story to compensate a bit :-).
Following a 1000km drive we started shortly after a rich lunch in the car, hoping to get to the Floraei summit before darkness comes. About 15 km in 7 hours does not look like a challenge, 1600m climbing and terrain without any road or path marked in the map does. The friendly local allowed us to park in his garden. "You are going on foot? Be careful, there are bears! ". Ok, ok, we know…
There were wide and easy roads
and narrow and difficult ones, especially the 500m part through the dwarf mountain pine below the top.
I posted an conservative ETA of 1800Z to alerts, we arrived almost an hour earlier. Yet I could not make it anyway. Changing clothes, cooking, building the tent, finding a place to hide our food from bears etc… and I was late. Finally I could dive into the pile-up…well I had to reach OK1MGW first and ask him to spot me - though we could see the Sibiu town below (about 50 km distant), the GSM signal was erratic to nonexistent.
The activation was nevertheless a complete success.
I had to close the radio because I was too tired and asleep, there’ve been callers all the time.
The morning was even better then the evening, topped-up by “not DL1TM but ZL1TM…” in the middle of a pile-up from EU.
A good start indeed, weather seemed to keep the promise and remain nice and steady (about 4 deg in the night, 15 during the day and sunny all the time). We headed off for the next summit, the Sherpului 2142 m. Not far, but we had to descend to find water first. We crossed a size-able herd of sheep
Of course there was a shepherd (one) and dogs (many). The dogs were doing their job, barking us off from about 2m distance. But there was one mean guy I did not notice until too late and I got a serious deep bite in my right calf. It was my fault, we met quite a few dogs on our way up and I become too careless. Not only my first aid kit got handy, the insulation tape I favor to fix broken wires found an unexpected use.
Since the safest way to our car was over Sherpului anyway, and I was not in a shape to walk immediately, we decided to continue as planned for the night at least - I needed a rest. Note that the shepherd was not communicative at all and asking whether the dog has been vaccinated sounded silly in the circumstances anyway. Hence I had to get to the rabies vaccine within couple of days, but not necessarily within hours.
I limped up to the Sherpului summit and we camped again, about at the sunset.
I prepared the rig and antenna and my son started to cook. “There’s no gas left!” “Impossible, I took brand new big cartridge.”. Oops, another mistake of mine - while hastily packing the bag in the car, I took the small, half empty cartridge intended for the second, short trip. Ok, let’s make a campfire. I can tell you, collecting a usable heap of wood on such a bare summit is possible, but pretty difficult task. We were rewarded by two bowls of a hot soup, while the wind started to gain force to make it more interesting.
The true disaster came when I started to operate my setup. Trying to catch the last moments of open 15m band, I made 5 QSO there, including WF4I. Nice start. I switched to 18MHz, the band seemed empty, nobody answered my CQ. Ok, let’s go to 14…the band is empty as well. I realized something is terribly wrong. Hoping to find some loose soldering, I opened the box and tried with the tools I have. I even managed to bring the receiver to life for about 30 secs, by giving an electric shock to the passband-filter multiplexer IC, which was apparently the cause. Most probably the IC did not survive the temperature shocks. QMX is beautifully designed, lightweight … and cheap. The components used are not exactly industry grade, one should not be surprised if something like that happens. Ufff. I love my QMX, yet after this experience I will look for something more robust. I can imagine thorough testing and possible replacement of critical components, but that would be too far from the original purpose of QMX.
I answered few SMS from friends waiting on 14 MHz and fell asleep. I needed to collect some strength for the remaining 30 km, even if on comfortable roads.
The morning was nice except the wind.
My leg was usable, so we walked slowly but steadily. We met some shepherd dogs, some of them very friendly and calm.
I must admit I was terribly scared of every dog anyway and chased away even a friendly puppet trying to lick my shoes. We visited Prejba YO/MC-110 along the way and eventually descended to the valley again. Happily talking on a wide forest road, knowing we are in the car before dark, my son suddenly whispers “Bears!”. I looked up “These are wild p…oh sh..!”. There they were. A big mother bear and two lovely looking babies, crossing the road about 40m in front of us. The photo is not attached, because we both quickly and independently thought “I take a photo…no take a cover you idiot!”. It must have been interesting look, when two guys with backpacks are running away, trying to look very calm and definitely not scared at the same time. Fortunately we disappeared behind a curve very soon and found some wood-cutter cabins there. Of course locked, but we felt safer knowing the windows can be shattered in the worst case.
Nothing happened (of course) and after 20 minutes we slowly returned to the road. The last unpleasant part of the expedition was my visit to urgency ambulance in our hospital 24 hours later. The doctor examined my wounds and gradually got deeper and deeper, causing me so much pain I almost fainted. He apologized “It did not look that deep initially, I would give you some anesthetic…” Uff. When the sister giving me the rabies vaccine an hour later excused for causing me pain, I almost laughed.
If someone is interested in the route, it’s here Mapy.com
Jiri OK5WA
