Silver Peak (W7W/CW-052) SOTA

On 9 July Lily, Colten, Grizzy (Lab/Shepherd/Spaniel Mix) and I made the 1.5 hour drive up to Snoqualmie pass to do some hiking and radio. The weather seemed iffy but looked to be good if we were to get to the east of the pass. I had been looking at getting up to Silver Peak and thought that this would be a good day to do it. We got a little bit of a late start and left the house around 0930. We were at the trailhead at approximately 1130 and started to hike. The weather was great. There were some clouds but they left us alone on the hike and on the summit. We did not start getting any rain until we were off of the steep parts and back on the PCT. On the way up to the summit I was able to work Chris (WX7EMT) on the summit of Jester Mountain and Tim (KG7EJT) on the summit of Thorp Mountain. It is great to get to work other activators but it would have been nice if I was on the summit to make these summit to summit contacts. I listened to Tim work a few other summits.

Here is the video of our hike and activation. Cool part about 3:30 in the video when Lily works Katie and Tanner, W7TAO's children. Thanks Todd it was fun!

We got the directions off of the Washington Trail Association (WTA) and they were spot on. http://www.wta.org/go-hiking/hikes/silver-peak. When you are in the area definitely look at doing Mount Catherine ( W7W/CW-066) as it is a short 3 mile round trip hike and another amazing view. http://www.wta.org/go-hiking/hikes/mount-catherine. Another Summit that is in the area that you could do if you are very ambitious is Tinkham Peak West (W7W/KG-063). When you hike the trip to Silver you are in the Saddle between Tinkham and Silver Mountains. I have seen reports on Peak Bagger that have summited this way. Check this Peak Bagger trip report out for GPS tracks: http://www.peakbagger.com/climber/ascent.aspx?aid=469450.

Elevation profile from gpsvisualizer.com

WTA says that Silver Peak is a 5.6 mile round trip hike. I think that it is more like 6 - 6.5 miles round trip. I did not have a GPS on but I ran across a couple that stated that their GPS said 3 miles and they were still short of the summit. Still a great hike though. The Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) portion of the hike is very gentle until the you turn off the PCT for the 2nd half of the hike where most of the elevation is gained. You gain about 1400 feet in about 1.2 miles.

Cell Service - Verizon, full voice and data at the summit. No signal after you were down about 300 ft off the summit.

APRS - I was able to transmit and receive signal on most of the hike. I also was able to self spot on the summit using APRS to SOTA

Weather - Weather was cloudy and about 60 degrees. We had some cloud breaks on the summit. A slight breeze on the summit but very comfortable. A little bit of rain on the way down.

Equipment - Yaesu FT817nd, 41' EndFed Random Wire (Wireman Part #534) / 16' Counterpoise, Palm Radio Mini Paddle, Yaesu VX-6, Kenwood TH-d72, Elecraft T1 Antenna Tuner. I also had my Elecraft KX1 in my bag. I guess you can never be too prepared!

GPS Tracks: http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=3440757