Tag: W7N/WC-005

Easter weekend SOTA(s): W7N/WC-005 and W6/NS-290 and a companion

Saturday: Was a productive and beautiful spring weekend in the Tahoe area!    Miracle March has left and the temps are warming, and the difference in one week in the Mount Rose area was very noticeable. If you remember/read, last weekend I did W7N/WC-003 Tamarack Peak in waist deep powder, this weekend I was literally on the other side of Mt Rose highway walking on hard pack easily going 2mph faster…  Looking back at Tamarack on Saturday, what was covered the weekend before was already showing bare.  So Spring is here, and while MM delivered an awesome 12 feet to help our meager snow pack, it’s already melting off.  Before I get into the SOTA side of things, lets rehash this for a second.  At the end of January, we were at a 30% snow pack percentage for the ’17/’18 season.  At the end of the March we were at 85% of our average… Even with the amazing ’16/’17 season we are still not out of the woods, and we could easily slip back into a drought scenario if we keep having these 70-90% snow pack years.  Hopefully we do not accept this as the new norm..   Okay hippy tree hugging climate change PSA is out of the way!!  So on Saturday I decided it was time to finish off the Mt Rose section and consequently have finally finished WC-001 thru WC-005 in the process.  This is an unnamed peak listed as 9225 (W7N/WC-005).  This like Tamarack is one of those i would suggest is easier in the winter then the summer, especially if snowshoeing on hard pack snow..

 You can go directly to the peak off trail, there is only really one hard ascent at the end, which you would have to do in the summer too, but the hard pack snow with good grip snowshoes (or crampons would be a good option too) will make the ascent easier to deal with.  I would not actually call the ascent that hard, it’s ~800 feet long with 280 feet of climbing for that last final push.  The route is 1.7 miles each way.  GSP Track image below:

This day was definitely getting warm, and the avalanche danger was getting moderate, however the ascent route is on the north facing side, so that did keep the avy danger down some during the afternoon warming/wet slide concerns.

 

Easy to get to this location:  drive up Mt Rose Highway, and park on either side of the side of the road at Tahoe Meadows/Ophir Creek. (1/2 mile shy of Rose pass).

 

 

So next up is an apologies to the chasers, I tend to get a little ADD on Saturdays with the S2S chasing myself.  It is hard to focus on just the activation when I am seeing regions i know are reachable, so a lot of times I tend to go try S2S chase while leaving my working freq.   If it seems like i have wandered off, it’s bc I’m probably S2S someone.

I spent two hours on the summit on Saturday between chasing S2S (and waiting for a few folks from some of the alerts) and working the activation. I ended up getting S2S with KI4SVM, KH7AL, and VE6IXD.  All in all 14 QSO for this summit.  Trying to get my QSO count per activation up too!

 

 

 

Time Call Band Mode Notes
18:22z N4EX 14MHz SSB s3x3, r4x4. into NC
18:23z W0MNA 14MHz SSB 5×7 to Ks, thnx Gary
18:25z W0ERI 14MHz SSB 5×7 to Ks
18:25z K9IR 14MHz SSB s5x5 r3x3 chicago
18:37z KH7AL 7MHz SSB s2s, 3×3.
18:39z NS7P 7MHz SSB r5x6, s5x5, Thnx Phil
18:57z K8TE 14MHz SSB r5x5, s5x9 NM
18:59z WA2USA 14MHz SSB 2×2, 5×9 IN
19:00z KD0YOD 14MHz SSB 5×7 to Minn
19:07z KI4SVM 14MHz SSB s2s to w4g
19:12z WA9STI 7MHz SSB weak 3×3, 5×7 to LA
19:14z NG6R 7MHz SSB r4x3, s5x7, thnx Jerry
19:15z KK7BV 7MHz SSB 4×5, 5×7 in AZ
20:12z VE6IXD 14MHz SSB s2s, 2×2, s3x3

 

 

Sunday: 

The snow capped peaks include Pyramid Peak, Price, Little Pyramid. I am standing just below Big Hill on the Big Hill Helispot.

So earlier in the week I’d been talking with N6DNM (Dmitry) about his upcoming Tahoe weekend and working to get a chase on him as well as hopefully doing a double activation with him.   Saturday night we agreed we would do Big Hill (W6/NS-290).  He’d need to finish up a couple of things, and then he would roll down and meet me in South Lake, and we’d fight the Easter Sunday traffic out of Tahoe down the 50 and to our peak..  So this is one of the few drive up peaks I’ve done.  I keep telling myself to explore this side of Desolation, but seem to barely get past Wright’s Lake road headed West.   FWIW, I am planning a trip in August to Loon Lake for camping, there I will go after McKinstry and Guide peak. That assumes i do not go buy a side-by-side or some other OHV and approach them via the Rubicon.

It was yet another amazing Sierra Nevada day, and even though the peak is at 6100 feet, no hoody was needed, just shorts, hat, sunglasses, and away we went.

This peak is doable all winter long technically as they keep the road to Big Hill plowed since it is an NFS Fire Tower:   Not a lot to write about, so here is my QSO log, and then pictures from the rest of the weekend will be below.  13 contacts, N6DNM and I changed positions for SOTA complete and 1 S2S.

Time Call Band Mode Notes
20:10z AE0AX 14MHz SSB S2S, r3x3, s4x4
20:16z KK6YYD 14MHz SSB 2×2, just above me in Placerville
20:17z K8HU 14MHz SSB r2x2, s5x7 VA
20:35z KG7LR 144MHz FM FQ to LOdi s5x4
20:50z W6JMP 7MHz SSB r5x5, s5x7 SAC ground skip
21:08z WB6DZJB 144MHz FM r5x5, s5x7 Oakley California
21:12z WJ6N 144MHz FM Barry down in Galt, FQ
21:28z KD0IPI 14MHz SSB s5x9, r5x7 MN
21:28z VA2MO 14MHz SSB s5x7 r5x3 DX to QC
21:29z N1EU 14MHz SSB r5x6s5x5, NY
21:32z WD4CFN 14MHz SSB s5x7r3x3QSB, TN
21:35z KF5ZFL 14MHz SSB r: 5x7s5x9 AR

Some parting shots from Saturday:

talk about an easy approach, head across that meadow, hit the first ridge, shoot along the ridge line right to left, hit the saddle and do the final push up to the top of 9225.
Rose (WC-001) on the right, Tamarack (WC-003) and Houghton (WC-002) behind and left of Tamarack.

 

 

You let mother nature give you a way to string your wire and hang your flag..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some parting shots from Sunday:

 

another show with Pyramid on the left, then Price, Little Pyramid, and 9240. I think McKinstry or Guide are all SOTA peaks in this image.. all 8 pointers too..