Willson Peak (W6/NC-182) SOTA Activation

Summit: Willson Peak W6/NC-182

On the 22nd of September I finally made my way into Henry Coe State Park again to activate this unactivated summit. After Bill's HIll earlier in the year this peak had to wait for the weather to cool off. Henry Coe is notorious for some very hot temperatures and very little shade. I left the home QTH at about 0600 and arrived and started at 0700. It was 48 degrees and very much appreciated. The trip got interesting when about 2 miles from the trailhead the check guages light came on in my truck. I noticed that the truck was not charging at the rate that it should. Earlier I had smelt a wierd smell but had chocked in up to the garlic in the garlic capitol of the world, Gilroy, CA. I guess that burning battery can smell alot like garlic! Anyway, I continued on to the trailhead figuring that my truck stuck in a parking lot was better then on a narron, at times one lane, road. When I got there I popped the hood and 1 of the 2 batteries on the 2007 Ram 3500 was leaking over and smoking. Of course at this time a check of the cell phone yielded no signal. I remembered from Bills Hill that when I was up on the summit that I had spotty signal so I got to stepping. I arrived at the summit at about 0830 about 30 min. before activation time a proceeded to call Firestone and get a battery that my XYL went and picked up and brought out to me. This only took about 5 dropped calls with Firestone and my XYL to take care of. In the end the Activation was great with 31 total QSO's and my first SOTA DX which was to Scotland! After the activation Delma and the kids met me and we did some geo-cacheing. 

Route: HWY 101 South, Leavesley Rd/CA 152 W. towards Gilroy, Left on Leavesley Rd, Left on New Ave, Right on Roop Rd, Straight on Gilroy Hotsprings Rd, TH on Right.

Cell Signal: Yes, Spotty (Verizon). I was able to send texts to my XYL to spot but digital and SOTA goat was not going to happen

Interference: None. I had absolutely no noise on the top of this one and was able to pull some really week signals. Really low signals were very copyable.

Distance: Round Trip 6.4 Miles. 

Trail Condition: Well traveled dirt path. Steep at times.TH is at about 800 Ft. and Summit is at 2651 ft. About 1800 ft. elevation change.

EveryTrail Route: http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=2327450

Setup: FT857d, MP1 SuperAntenna, 6 Counter poises at 1/4 wavelength, 12 ft telescoping whip, 7.5 A/H SLAB.

Contacts: 31 Contacts, 1 S2S with W7DDM, A Couple of these were dups on different bands, these were relaying information on other Summits and helping to spot. Thanks for all the help with this.

A good picture of what most of the trail looked like. There was small amounts of fire roads on the way.

Some great pictures in and above the clouds on the way up!

There is a deer in this picture! A little hard to see but it is there.

Some more great cloud photos.

 Benchmarks at the summit.

 This is Bills Hill across the Valley. I was lucky to come off of that hill with no Poison oak. It was everywhere.

 After I was done with the SOTA activation Delma and the Kids met me for some Geo-Caching. 4 more found today!

My log:

QSO: 18165 SS 2013-09-22 1753 KF7PXT        58         KC3RT         58          

QSO: 18165 SS 2013-09-22 1752 KF7PXT        59         N1EU          55          

QSO: 18165 SS 2013-09-22 1750 KF7PXT        22         MM0USU        33          

QSO: 18165 SS 2013-09-22 1749 KF7PXT        21         KI4SVM        55          

QSO: 18165 SS 2013-09-22 1748 KF7PXT        22         WA4HMX        22          

QSO: 18165 SS 2013-09-22 1748 KF7PXT        55         W6UB          53          

QSO: 18165 SS 2013-09-22 1748 KF7PXT        53         N7UN          53          

QSO: 18165 SS 2013-09-22 1748 KF7PXT        57         K6EL          57          

QSO: 18165 SS 2013-09-22 1743 KF7PXT        54         N4EX          54          

QSO: 18165 SS 2013-09-22 1742 KF7PXT        58         KC3RT         56          

QSO: 18165 SS 2013-09-22 1742 KF7PXT        59         KA7CVJ        51          

QSO: 14652 SS 2013-09-22 1720 KF7PXT        59         KG6NRI        59          

QSO: 71950 SS 2013-09-22 1648 KF7PXT        58         W7JET         53          

QSO: 71950 SS 2013-09-22 1645 KF7PXT        59         K6TUY         58          

QSO: 71950 SS 2013-09-22 1642 KF7PXT        33         N5XL          33          

QSO: 71930 SS 2013-09-22 1637 KF7PXT        33         NS7P          44          

QSO: 71870 SS 2013-09-22 1636 KF7PXT        22         W7DDM         22          

QSO: 14347 SS 2013-09-22 1612 KF7PXT        33         NS7P          33          

QSO: 14347 SS 2013-09-22 1611 KF7PXT        55         N0QAU         55          

QSO: 14347 SS 2013-09-22 1609 KF7PXT        56         AA7DK         56          

QSO: 14347 SS 2013-09-22 1608 KF7PXT        55         AD5A          55          

QSO: 14347 SS 2013-09-22 1607 KF7PXT        43         WN1E          33          

QSO: 14347 SS 2013-09-22 1606 KF7PXT        56         VE2JCW        22          

QSO: 14347 SS 2013-09-22 1606 KF7PXT        55         ND0C          44          

QSO: 14347 SS 2013-09-22 1605 KF7PXT        22         KC3RT         33          

QSO: 14347 SS 2013-09-22 1604 KF7PXT        32         N4EMG         33          

QSO: 14347 SS 2013-09-22 1601 KF7PXT        22         WX4ET         22          

QSO: 14347 SS 2013-09-22 1601 KF7PXT        58         W0MNA         25          

QSO: 14347 SS 2013-09-22 1600 KF7PXT        57         WB5USB        42          

QSO: 14347 SS 2013-09-22 1600 KF7PXT        55         N4EX          34          

QSO: 14347 SS 2013-09-22 1559 KF7PXT        58         K1JD          59      

Thanks to all the Chasers.