I’ve been to Gran Canaria a few times, with a close friend who is “local” so I’ve managed to get a fair measure of the mountain environment here… which requires some serious respect, these are rough volcanic sun baked mountains with harsh rock, exposure and cliffs to avoid in many directions. This required a good understanding of routes, prep, bail out plans, safety equipment, suncream and huge amounts of water.
When I climbed Corral de los Molinos EA8/GC-016 last week I saw Montaña Lobas from the summit and felt this peak looked pretty special, with an almost prefect Pyramidal summit cone !
Montaña Lobas from EA8/GC-016 with Tenerife and Teide EA8/TF-001 in the background
So before I leave GC, I cooked up a plan to walk the ridge from the road at Mirador de Tasartico up to Montaña del Lechugal EA8/GC-015 for sunrise, then onto Montaña Lobas EA8/GC-014 and if possible a finish on Mogarenes EA8/GC-017 (with a returning down the valley to Las Rosas). Finding route information was difficult there wasn’t allot for this summit, having to reference multiple sources to anticipate any difficulties.
I started at the col at Mirador de Tasartico at 6.40am and reached the summit of EA8/GC-015 Montaña del Lechugal without any problems after about 50 minutes, just in time for sunrise! I decided to only bring verticals today and for sunrise it was going be 20m: long path DX and anything else I could scoop on 20m.
Out towards Tenerife with the 20m 1/4w vertical
The target for today: Montaña Lobas from EA8/GC-015
Sunrise over Inagua ruined by bright white poundland chopping board
I managed to bag 43 QSO’s on this summit just focusing on 20m for about 40 minutes. The highlight and a complete surprise was three long path QSO’s to VK and ZL: working @VK3PF on VK3/VG-121 (with a superb signal report 5/4 while we were both on 10w), @ZL1TM and VK1AO
Following this, i packed up, had a bit of breakfast and headed towards Montana Lobas. The route to the foot of the mountain was straightforward including finding a traverse to avoid some re-ascent… always good ! And this is where the difficulties of the summit cone became obvious:
The summit cone of Montana Lobas where the obstacles became obvious
The route up the cone required some careful routefinding; thankfully much of the route or key sections were marked usually with cairns, sometimes spraypaint. There is lots of exposure and some moderate scrambling required, but this was a superb route.
Just enough room on the summit for a 10m 1/4w vert
On the summit i deployed the 10m vertical quickly with the aim of working Europe and achieved 43 QSO’s, across Europe. F4WBN was quick off the mark and first in the log. Special mention to all the EA8 chasers in Tenerife and GC who have been really great chasers in the past week, all successfully chasing me on 10m despite me not activating 40m NVIS once this trip.
Following this, I decided that given the risk and difficulties in approach on the summit cone, it would be best to return the same way and leave Mogarenes EA8/GC-017 for another day or someone else !
Looking down the summit cone
Finally down
With the benefit of hindsight curtailing this trip was a good decision, because the “Calima” arrived earlier than expected: a easterly from the Sahara which brings dust and high temps. By the mid afternoon the temperature had shot up and the dust had rolled in…
Thank you to everyone who chased me. A fantastic trip, one to remember. My boots are wrecked after 5 days of SOTA in GC and my wife says I look like i’ve been mauled by a kitten, such is the cumulative effect of the volcanic rock and well adapted shrubs in GC. A top Island !
. Thanks for all the summits that made my chaser log on various bands…well done.
, less so the barren terrain.