My feeling during yesterday’s activation was so good that I decided to do another one today. And I felt again in a really good physical shape.
Today’s chosen summit was Mt. Baratxueta, located just 28 Km North of Pamplona.
You can see how it looks like in this picture taken on my return home after the activation:
You can see following the GPS track I followed, and the elevation gain profile:
The ascent was all the time in the shade of a nice beech trees forest:
An increasing gradient, which became maximum in the final part of the ascent
The final part of the ascent started here and the gradient became really steep.
After 35-40 minutes, I reached the summit:
It was very cloudy when I got to the summit and I even had some micro-drops of rain falling during the first part of the activation. Before setting-up, I took several pictures of the views from the summit, but the clouds finally went away towards the end of the activation and I took new pictures of the views with the sunny weather. These last are the ones I’ll share with you.
There’s a very convenient fence crossing the summit from North to South and I took advantage of it for my set-up.
10m long telescopic pole,
14m long wire as a sloper towards the North and down to a 9:1 unun,
5m long counterpoise wire elevated on top of the fence,
The antenna wire was pretty much invisible on the original picture, so I’ve drawn a red line in its place for you to see it.
At the operator’s side: FT-817ND at 5W + MFJ-941B antenna tunner fitted inside a customized wooden box where all cables are pre-connected.
This was the summit seen from my operating position:
The activation went like this:
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30m CW: 33 QSOs, 6 of which S2S, in 39 minutes.
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20m SSB: 8 QSOs, 3 of which S2S, in 12 minutes.
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40m SSB: 34 QSOs, 1 of which S2S, in 23 minutes.
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20m CW: 25 QSOs, 4 of which S2S, in 45 minutes. I was nicely surprised when I saw his spot on SOTAwatch. My first QSO on 20m CW was a S2S with Andy MM0FMF/P. My surprise was even greater when I was called by Galih @YC2VOC at 13h29z. We completed what it was my very first ever SOTA QSO with Indonesia. Thanks a lot Galih!
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40m CW: 2 QSOs with my friends Ignacio EA2BD and Alf EA4R.
All in all, 102 QSOs, 14 of which were S2S and a great DX with Indonesia.
You can see it on the map:
Before leaving the summit, I took new pictures of the views now with the sunshine:
On my descent through the beech trees forest, I came accross some Gnomo’s houses, but they were either sleeping inside or out at work 
Thanks dear chaser for your calls and QSOs. I’ll be looking forward to copying you all again from a SOTA soon.
73,
Guru
I’m glad it worked out on 30m to you.