Junipero Serra (W6/SC-025) SOTA Activation

On the 14th of Feb (Valentines Day) Del, Charlie (the dog) and I set out on a weekend alone. Strange, but when we get time alone we head to the mountains. We picked up Valentines dinner on our way through Gilroy, CA and picked up Famous Daves to go. This was the first time that we had been there but the ribs were delicious! So we were off to the hills! We stayed at Santa Lucia Memorial Campground. This campground is right at the trail head to Junipero Serra. We got in around 0030 local time and threw the sleeping bags out in the back of the truck. We woke in the morning about 0730 and were on the trail by 0830. I had posted originally for 1900z but we were a far cry from making that. We quickly found out that the trail was hard to follow and that there were a lot of side trails some of which connected to the main trail and some of which did not. The trail was severly overgrown and quite steep in places. Delma made a good try at the summit but ended up stopping just a little shy of the actual summit and taking a rest while I continued on and activated. It ended up being about 12 miles round trip. After the trip we headed up to the coast ridge to camp and do Cone peak the next day.

Route: 

From Mountain View, CA take 101S to Jolon Road, just north of King City. Follow Jolon road for about 20 miles and turn right towards Fort Hunter Ligget. Follow map and everytrail from here. 

Cell Signal: 

Only analog signal for text at the top. I had to rely on SMS for spotting. It worked great!

Radio working conditions: 

No issues. Nice and quiet on the bands

Trail Condition: 

Steep and brushy. Hard to follow at times. There is a lot of switch backs. It was close to 70 degrees when we did this. I would not do it in the summer! I have been to the area in the summer and the temp easily gets about 110 degrees.

Weather: 

Great day at about 70 degrees. A nice breeze!

Fees: 

None 

EveryTrail Route: 

http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=633611

This is not my everytrail track but it is the same route that I took. My track did not turn out to well and I tried to edit it and only made it worse. 

This is mine - http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=2669700

Setup: 

PFR3 with internal AA batteries - http://www.qrpkits.com/pfr3.html

Note: the AA batteries lasted me on all three activations without a charge. I was impressed.

Lambda Antenna - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXo0XucRpt0&list=FLuy-J6QwwXmIdgM0-I2ue7w&index=1

AME Porta Paddle II - http://www.americanmorse.com/portapaddle.htm

Contacts:

Only 9 contacts on 30m. Sorry about this. I was in a big hurry to get started back to the truck. I tried to hop on 20m but the contest traffic was overwhelming for me. Only 18 minutes on the air and then I wanted to get back started on the trail.

Del and I with a Selfy at the trailhead. The cold weather gear quickly came off!

There are a lot of neat rock formations in the area.

I have no idea what this was? If you have an idea let me know.

This was at the beginning. He was very excited to be off the leash. He was not running like this at the end!

I always wonder how stuff like this gets out in the middle of nowhere!

What was left of the sign from the fire. Someone told me the fire went through in 2008.

This is a picture of Del. I was looking down from one of the switchbacks above her.

The tall peak is Cone Peak which we did on day 2.

This was at the end by the truck. Charlie laid down and went right to sleep.

Dinner for the night.

Along the route we encountered 2 other people. One of them was trying to do about 40 miles in 24 hours. When I got to the Cone Peak trailhead the next day he was asleep there. He had made it but was totally exhausted. Thanks to all the chasers! Sorry for not spending a little more time on this one.

73,

Matt
KF7PXT