Last October, I failed to climb the Grapevine Hill summit in West Texas. Due to my inexperience in climbing I regrettably aborted my attempt and went home with disappointment and frustration
In the ensuing months, I had consulted one of our premiere mountaineers, Dan KG5PVP, who gave me great advice for a novice climber. His advice included many tips for how to assess Topo maps and seek best routes for ascent and decent. We also chatted about gear and clothing, and the potential challenges for terrain and weather. Wow, I got a crash course in mountaineering. This why ham radio is such a cool hobby- there are always new things to learn and there are plenty of gracious experts willing to share their knowledge.
My trip itinerary:
Fri: Activate 2 rare POTA sites along the way to Big Bend in West Texas. a 9 hr drive.
Sat: Activate Grapevine Hill SOTA, also activate 3404 summit, an adjacent site.
Sun: Optionally activate summit #3 W5T/SB-003 Paint Gap Hills, to retrieve my Tilley hat that I left there last year.
Executive Summary:
– Activated US-11900 Blackwell School National Park POTA
– Activated US-6554 Elephant Mountain Wildlife Mgt Area POTA
– Activated W5T/SB-006 Grapevine Hills Summit SOTA
Lessons Learned:
Lesson 0- Having plenty of junque food and liquids makes the adventure pleasant
Lesson 1- A screwdriver antenna for POTA works GREAT!
This was my maiden trip for my Tarheel 100A-HP. I specifically took it for activation at the Blackwell School, knowing this location was located on a city block with no place to deploy an external antenna nor a setup. I parked along the curb and activated without any impact to the premises and with no disturbance with the surrounding neighborhood.
Lesson 2- Anticipate impacts of broken cellular internet access.
Cell access if used for spotting and communications. I’ve learned to expect this, but its unavailability was magnified when I entered POTA Elephant. A notice was posted that entry required Temporary Use Permit which was only available online. There was no cell/internet access at the site, so I had to drive 1 hour south to the nearest town just to gain internet access for entry. Is it worth buying a $500 cell Weboost signal booster? Hmm.
Lesson 3- Wear pants
In this summit, there was plenty of enemy cactus with both large spikes and those insidious small ones that implant their ultra sharp needles into your skin. Falling on scree are also real memorable on your legs. The pros don’t need it, but I sure did.
Lesson 4- portable chair and table are worth it
Operating while sitting on jaggy rocks and gravel with a radio, key, and log on your lap is not my cup of tea. My ultra lightweight Helionox chair and table worked GREAT. For me it was well worth the extra payload in the backpack- chair 1 lb table 2 lb.
Lesson 5- Don’t expect too much with cheapest motel
Due to spring break, I couldn’t find a reasonably priced (with a bathroom) available lodging except Chisos Mining Motel. Yep, a super cheap and barebones accommodation. Why not? Not. They had a toilet (great), but disallowed flushing toilet paper. Yep, you had to place this stuff in a small garbage can. No room service, so that garbage can retains this waste until you leave- gross. No microwave, no TV, creaky, uneven flooring, wafer thin wall (like living in an old RV), unworkable WIFI, unsealed door with modest simple door latch. It worked, but I’m willing to pay more in the future. Yep, I’m a cheap and spoiled city boy.
Lesson 6- Gotta have coffee – even cold
I’m a coffee addict. That’s why I brought my electric hot pot and instant coffee to the cheap motel. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring a cup that could hold my coffee. So, I resorted to cold soaking 2 instant coffee bags in a plastic cup of water. It did the trick the next morning.
Lesson 7- One vs two hiking poles
I’m sure this is personal preference, but I tried hiking up the summit using two hiking poles. It was awkward. I ended up using just one, which worked perfect for me.
Lesson 8- Wear gloves. I have the cactus needles in my hand to prove this need.
Lesson 9- Quicker the setup, the better
During this SOTA summit, I was confronted with very gusty winds which made erecting my mast and linked dipole a PITA. The winds made deploying this a real tough and exhausting effort. I would seriously consider an easier deployable antenna under these types of conditions. A vertical? An EFHW? perhaps.
Lesson 10- Height not that important on summit
I read about other SOTA mountaineers who claim that the antenna height above ground is overrated when you’re already atop a summit. We’ll I worked Jayant KG5LJZ with 599 while my dipole was inadvertently laying on the ground after it blew down from a strong gust.
Lesson 11- Weird conditions happens
WTF?!! working Houston on 20m from West Texas 500 miles away! This is quite extraordinary based on traditional 20m skip. What’s going on? I have a theory. During these days, the winds were extremely gusty to the point the sky was a tainted gray. Could the disturbed airborne dust have contributed to temperature inversions which intensified a lower-level tropospheric effect that was conducive to short skip? That’s my story.
Lesson 12- N3FJP not great for me/ POLO?
I have been using a popular configuration of POTA for N3FJP. I find the recommended entry fields to be hard to navigate. During a QSO, I had to quickly send my mouse from the left side of the form to the right, which hardly enough time to log and respond. I recently have been trying out Ham2K POLO (POrtable LOgger). I like what I see. The fields are easy to use and all adjacent to each other. Intuitively designed. Requires Android, iOS, or OSX (M1 processor- iPad or newer Macs)
Lesson 12- Screwdrivers get lots of rock n roll
My Screwdriver antenna has a long body about 5′ long with a 6′ whip on top of it.
The in-motion vibrations cause my antenna to undulate incited by both the inherent motion on the road, and due to road roughness and hazards while traveling at 80-90 mph. this has got to take a toll on the antenna guts. Fortunately, I removed it after the 2 POTA activations on day 1. On Day 2, there was 6 miles of *extremely* rough dirt roads that led to the trailhead. If I had left the screwdriver mounted, it would have really suffered unknown damage as the car was barely able to sustain the rough vibrations at 5 MPH through dirt, scree, hand sized rocks, and gullies.
Lesson 13- Be friendly and have fun
I remember Joe K5KUA having recently telling me that he’s now taking his time with his activations and not treating POTA pileups as a contester. Likewise, Milt K5KRM recently reflected on his operating style during NOTA ops- that it’s not fun just to make rapid QSOs but to hear conversations, engage, and chat. That was the style I chose to take, and it really did make the operating more fun.
Lesson 14- Topo/contour maps only give you an overview- must rely on eyes and experience
Despite countless hours reviewing topo contour maps in planning my ascent and decent based on the shapes of the gullies and ridges, when I arrived at the trailhead, the planned route was worthless, since I ended up upon an unclimbable impasse. I had to backtrack and use my eyes to find the small trail gap upwards in-between a cliff wall. This is not shown on a map.
Lesson 15- It’s fun working your friends.
It was so delightful to have worked K5RG, K5KUA, KG5URA, KG5LJZ, K5KRM and KG5PVP who tracked me, but we couldn’t establish a contact from Montana. This was inspirational to have you guys following me. Thanks for making this a special event for me.
Lesson 16- Listen to your body.
Day 2, my legs ached, and I was tired. So, I aborted my 2nd summit which was planned in the afternoon (also due to the increased gusty winds). And I also aborted my optional 3rd summit for Day 3. Instead, I had enough and headed home. BUT I’m ready to try it again to summit the new mountain. Oh yeah, did I forget to mention that you should have plenty of advanced training and exercise before attempting strenuous activity ….
Lesson 17- Avoid animals
Almost drove into a line brigade of wild mules meandering the highway around sunset. There was an accident down the road and I pray that the approaching ambulance didn’t hit them, even though I was frantically flashing my lights at them during their approach around the bend. We were all going 80 mph. Also found quite a large fresh hole by some larger creature while climbing up Grapevine Hills. I’m still real curious what it may have been, but glad I wasn’t stupid enough to poke at the hole.
Looking forward to the next W Texas adventure.
W5T/CI-035, 3402 is another easy summit that beckons my name!
73 Dave W5OC