Motivation
Jorge EA2LU, and I decided to activate a new one for us. The nearest summits have been visited and we are moving a bit further away to activate other mountains less frequently visited.
Today we visit Mt. Elosta, that had only been activated in 2013, in VHF and 12 meter bands.
Activation date: April 17th, 2021
Climb
The nearest village is Gorriti. There is an exit in the motorway A15 that brings you at the very start of the path, by passing under a bridge.
- Track length: 2,7 km
- Summit elevation: 926 m
- Height gain: about 250 m.
The climb is moderate and almost constant all the way through, as you can see in the vertical profile:
The start is clear as it follows a dirt road and later changes into a path.
As your progress, you find high bleech trees. Spring is here, and there are small and bright wrinkled leaves that produce a curious contrast between the naked trees and this life explosion:
When you are by two thirds of the way, you arrive to a big slope and are surprised with a beautiful natural balcony in front of some mountains with lovely scenery:
This impresive range is called Malloas (a Basque word that refers to the grassy field between the peaks). It extends in front of us for more than 8 kilometers long. The range is composed with several different peaks. Only the higher is a SOTA, Intzako Dorrea, EA2/NV-018 (1429 m.), but there are some other minor peaks with a beautiful shape.
If we visited the range in the coming weeks, we could probably find the grass in its brilliance:
Down the valley of Araitz, where river Araxes flows, we can see some small villages and houses nicely spread all over. A lovely place to stay and enjoy with the view, but we have to get on towards our target summit.
After 50 minutes walk we arrived in the summit, marked with a rocket mountain mailbox, similar to the one we have found in some other summits:
The summit is well covered with bleech trees, a pity that we miss from this point the excellent views that we had some minutes before. We found two spots in the activation zone, with less trees to start setting our stations.
Activation
- EA2LU station: KX2 and random wire 14m plus 4 short radials.
Jorge ran on 5, 7, 10 and 14 MHz, CW and a few SSB for S2S, logging 48 qso.
He worked S2S HB9CYV, DL3TU, EA5IYL, HB15SOTA, HB9AFI, F4VPX, DL6GCA, YO6PIB & EI3KA, quite a bunch!
- EA2BD station: LNR LD-5 and EFHW antenna. Batt is a 3S 21700 LiIon.
As we use to do, we separated a few hundred meter to decrease the interference between us.
I ran on 14 and 7 MHz SSB mainly. I also chased on 10 MHz CW for S2S.
My log was closed with 46 qso, including S2S with some of the summits worked by Jorge, and also OE5EEP, SV1RVJ, EC2AG and S53AAN (thanks Damijan for your patience to complete our QSO).
A pity I couldn’t make it through to log SP9MA/P, that I could hear on 40m CW. In general we experienced some sort of low signals and QSB, and later found that we had today a minor geomagnetic storm in progress that had a negative influence on HF.
Anyway, we enjoyed the visit to this area and get back with an enjoyable chat.
73 de Ignacio
Armin