I didn’t hike Mt San Cristobal up last Saturday because my wife was out in Madrid all weekend and the 2 younger kids (10 and 5) were ill with something, so we remained home.
Today it was very cloudy and it rained a little bit when we left home, but I was decided to try a new activation of Mt. San Cristobal today. It would be my 37th.
I dropped my 2 daughters at the rock climbing training place and headed to my usual hiking start point in the old town of Berrio-Zahar.
The gound was very wet but the path is mainly rocky so there are just a few muddy zones and the rest is rocky, so OK in today’s wet weather.
The path I always follow goes on the Southern side of the mountain and I didn’t get any rain during the ascent, but as soon as I was getting closer to the summit, I started to receive some rain.
Once in the summit, it rained. Not very much but enough as to make me decline about activating on HF and just using my handheld in order to avoid my FT-817 getting any water.
At the summit, I changed my Alert from 14-cw to 145.525-fm while trying to get some shelter close to a corner formed by two tall stone walls of the military building Fort San Cristobal at the summit.
After a couple CQ calls I got a call from Javier EA2EDU/M, who was in his car in the old town of Pamplona. We had a nice chat and after signing off and CQing again nobody else replied. The rain had become heavier by then so I decided to go QRT and start descent.
Descent was without rain, like the ascent, due to being on the Southern side of the mountain and the rain coming with some wind from the North. Thanks God!
Well, I got down just a bit wet, not much, but safe and sound.
Another pleasant hike in spite of the rain at the summit and one single nice QSO with Javier EA2EDU. Thank you!
Best 73 de Guru