Cows are actually more dangerous than bulls. When they have calves and you have a dog then they are far more likely to injure you.
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That reminds me that both times I activated Oat Mountain (W6/CT-032) I’ve had to giddyup a herd of longhorn steer off the road. They look pretty scary, but they haven’t charged me yet. Here’s a photo from the formidable hiker Valerie Norton:
Val’s impressive blog “Moments in Dirt and Ink”:
Eric KG6MZS
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Great topic, Eric. Breathtaking image. Good accounts from others.
My tale is more about summit greed rather than physical toil.
Over a long weekend in Sal Luis Obispo with my better half, I fit in two summits on the drive north, W6/SC-219 and W6/CC-056. Two days later I joined Kent, N6WT, on a fine activation of Valencia Peak, W6/SC-353. The last day, awake very early, I raced up W6/SC-327 where the DX included YC2VOC, S57S, F4WBN and GM0GAV. I zipped back to the rental to help check out of the rental. We then drove, separately, to check out the Avila Beach pier. I squeezed in W6/SC-357 on the way. We spent a lovely afternoon enjoying the shoreline and the pier sights. But in the back of my mind was W6/SC-377 just behind us. When she finally headed south I opted to scramble up to the summit. I got there a few minutes before sunset. My antenna installation in the fading light was rushed and not the best. Despite several RBN spots I got nary a QSO…nada. Even a text aided attempt on 2 meters with Kent at home failed; too far away.
I was skunked on Valley View Benchmark.
On the plus side, the sunset was majestic over the Pacific Ocean, the night scene looking south with a long line of traffic on the 101 freeway colorful, the hike down in the dark exciting and uneventful despite my trepidation (I had a headlamp). Though the traffic was thick when I joined the trail of taillights, it was lighter than earlier in the day.
73,
David N6AN
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David,
Considering you got 50 QSOs on 1,715 and Cerro San Luis, including all that DX, I’d say you have a pretty good day!
I love those all those beautiful morros up in the San Luis Obispo area. I’ve climbed all of them back when my big brother lived there. I guess a lot of them are off limits now as the ranchers have had enough of the hordes of hikers.
Thanks for the flowers and gorgeous shots from Valley View.
73 Eric KG6MZS
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Back in September 2020 I planned to activate GW/NW-002 Carnedd Llewelyn after activating Carnedd Dafydd for HEMA. I took the Tal y Llyn - Pen Yr Ole Wen route up to Dafydd. Took me ages to get to that point and after knocking off 12 contacts the time was getting on and I diddnt fancy being on a mountain for much longer! I had to cancel the activation and get back to the car before it got too dark. By the time I got onto the reservoir road it had got dark.
Probably would have manged the HEMA and SOTA activation if I had started out early, and had just kept walking instead of stopping to do a bits of a video. I looked at the route after and it was 12 Miles long and took me nearly 12 hours to complete! I think next time I’ll just do Llewelyn and go up the reservoir road instead!
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That is a lot of work! …but I don’t think it totally counts as an exercise in futility as you already had Carnedd Dafydd under your belt.
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I made a significant effort to get to W6/CT-127 a few years ago. The full story is over on the summit page. SOTA Summits
The short version is: I was attempting to use a canyon to get to a point where I could make trail to access this summit.
The first summit attempt I was blocked by this small but deep lake:
Later when the lake had dried up and I was better prepared I got past the lake.
Only to be blocked by another lake and a really high sheer wall.
I haven’t made another attempt since 2017 but do have a plan… just not the willingness to expend more effort. Also the summit area was involved in a large fire in 2020 which limited access for a while.
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Love your persistence. This story reminds me of our attempted climb of Piccacho del Diablo – a 10,157’ peak in Baja California, Mexico. We first tried it via Cañon del Diablo in the early '70’s. At the bottom of the canyon was a huge pool that we bypassed with a ladder that hung on a bolt. You had to grab a rope and pull the ladder over to the shore where you could reach the bottom rung and then get on and then swing out across the sheer granite wall over the pool to climb around. Fun with a full backpack.
On the way back, the first person had to climb down the ladder, drop into the pool and swim the ladder’s leash over to the shore so everyone else could climb down dry.
We didn’t make it to the summit that year after spending a week trying, but we did it a year later.
Eric KG6MZS
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