On 1 April I was staying at a hotel in Moses Lake, WA and decided to try and wake up early for a SOTA activatin before getting back on the road to Montana. I decided that Pinto Ridge looked like a pretty good opportunity to get a quick one in. Looking at imagery it looked like there was a paved road all the way to the activation zone. It looked like there was some kind of communications site at the summit and may be accessible. When I got to the summit this is what I found.
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| The is the gravel road to the summit. The house and buildings in the background are on the Summit. |
Being that the Activation Zone is pretty broad I thought that I would drive down farther and see if I could get to one side of the road or the other. These signs are throughout the area and on both sides of the road.
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| The sign to the bottom right mentions no trespassing for hunting without permission. |
I am sure that if you know the right people or talk to the owners that you could get permission to operate in the property but at 0700 in the morning I did not think that I should be knocking on doors! I decided that on the way back that I would do a little geocaching and came across this sign with some neat history.
Though I think that it would be possible to activate this summit by stopping short, walking up the road, and setting up on the side of the road, it would not be what I consider to be a fun activation sitting on the side of a paved road with a antenna in the air listening to cars fly by you at 50 mph. I decided that I would wait for another summit and another day. Power lines overhead would likely give you a lot of noise also.
I have conducted a map recon on a couple other peaks in the area with some promise to them and maybe next time I am through the area I will give one of them a try. Thanks to those chasers that were standing by for my activation. There may be one upcoming in Montana depending on the snow level and depth in the mountains. Thanks again.
Cell Signal: Verizon Analog signal at summit
