I Was 34 Years Old Again - SOTA Activation of Silver King Mtn - W7W/RS-010

Sunday, Aug 4, 2013, Myself, my partner and hiking companion Pat WT7N, and Chuck AC7QN head off to Mt Rainier National Park (WA State) with full backpacks for an overnighter in the BackCountry.  The main goal was physical conditioning with a full pack to prepare for 'the big hike' the following week- a shake down outing of sorts.  Where we were going to camp was based on BC campsite availability within the White River Wilderness area of the Park.  I had 3 BC choices, where two offered SOTA peak access.  With SOTA possibilities... we took our radio equipment.

This annotated trail map shows route to the Upper Lake and camp and marked route to the Silver King summit.  Silver King Mtn is part of a ridge that contains 3 other prominent (non SOTA) peaks.  This ridge forms the west slopes of the Crystal Mountain Ski Resort (Forest Service Land).  Another way to get to the summit is via the ski resort direction as Mark K7MAS did- see below.

We ended up receiving our first choice of BC camps, Upper Crystal Lake.   This area offers close access to Silver King Mtn, W7W/RS-010.  Note:  This peak is called Crystal Mtn in the SOTA database- but on most maps it is labeled Silver King.

Lugging myself and pack up the trail I reflected on the fact that we backpacked to this same camp with QRP radios on the first Sunday in August for the last 5 or more years... and even before I was aware of the SOTA program I've wanted to summit Silver King Mtn.  Originally- I had hoped to be the first to active W7W/RS-010, but Mark K7MAS beat me to it a few weeks earlier.

Upper Crystal Lake is a spectacular place to visit.  The lake is in a partial bowl surrounded by rocky features and alpine forest.  This year the snow melted sooner than past and 25 days with no rain the lake level was lower than I've seen before.  Never the less- the scenery is always spectacular.

Upper Crystal Lk with Crystal Pk on the left.  Our campsite is at the far end (looking west)

Looking east from our campsite area.  The sun is beginning to set.  Almost always there was a breeze to keep bugs away and provide some cooling in the 70 deg sun.  Back at 380 ft the temp was 87 deg, sorta warm for Tacoma / Seattle.  

A bit up hill and south of our BC camp... the summit can be easily seen.  Our route up is to the left of a gray rock pile see under the 'r' of the annotation.  The route down was through the tree'd slope on the right side.

KR7W's 18 ft fish pole strapped to old snag tree on the R to support a 44 ft doublet + TV twin lead + balun.  The radio is placed in the shade to prevent overheating and shutdown (as has happened in the past).  Sorry- it's rude of me to have my back to the camera.   Behind the trees is AC7QN operating 2M FM.

The next morning after acclimating to the elevation change (380 to 5800 ft) while sleeping-and after breakfast with mountain brewed coffee... we hit the trail to BC Ranger Ammie's (who we met on the trail and chatted with) suggested route to the summit.  The Ammie route took us back down the trail (-150 ft) to a clear spot and then up the slope.  

Nearly two hours later and ~1300 ft gain we are on the summit.  See crayon marks of the route on the trail map above.

Normally before I leave home I would post an Alert on Sotawatch but for this trip I didn't know exactly where in the Nat Park we'd end up... so no alert.  On the summit I had my HF station set up at 1915 UTC and went through the usual bands listening and calling CQ.  No luck on 40 or 30 Meters but a CQ SOTA on 14.061 netted 10 QSOs.  I asked Chaser NR 1 , K1JD in NM to spot me and 9 more CW QSOs were made until the band faded.  

Chuck AC7QN took over my radio and called CQ on 14.343 SSB with no luck.  Just goes to show that posting an alert helps to get SOTA QSOs.

On my last 3 or 4 higher elevation summits... I've noticed a lot of chatter on 146.520 FM and it was the same here at 7012 ft.  While I was operating on 20M CW, Chuck was calling on six-five-two and quickly made 5 contacts.  While Chuck as operating SSB I then went to 2M netted 5 QSOs, some Qs with different hams... and one S2S with Derrek K3XD on Granite Mtn to the north.  I've noticed that new hams seemed to be tickled to make contact with another (seemingly) far away ham on 2 meters- especially if either or both hams are using HTs.

KR7W operates 2M FM on six-five-two using Kenwood D72A APRS HT connected to coaxial dipole made from sched 20 PVC and mobile radio whip antenna.  Tipping the antenna sometimes reduced multi-path interference- most likely reflecting off of Mt Rainier. It seems unnecessary to elevate a 2M antenna already at 7012 ft with Line O Site to everywhere... but in this case it did help make contact with N7KRE on Camano Island.  Now, construction details of this antenna can be found at the end of this blog entry.

Whilst on the summit looking south I could see boot track heading off towards the Pacific Crest Trail.  We followed this path down the ridge and ended up on the original route I had formulated before BC Ranger Ammie's suggestion.  More fotos with captions can be found here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kr7w-sota/sets/72157634987462853/

Coax Dipole antenna details can be found here:http://kr7w.blogspot.com/


Epilog:  The Title of this blog entry begins, "I Was 34 Years Old Again - SOTA Activation......"  A long time ago when I got into mountaineering and backpacking... I developed a penchant for boulder and steep slope climbing.  I enjoy the puzzle of which boulder to hop to or which tree on the steep slope to bushwack through.  This SOTA outing provided me the opportunity re-live that passion from 30 years ago but, of course, at a slower old goat's pace.

Best Regards,
Rich kr7w