Capturing the Art of Nature
Gwendoline Peak
A lovely day to sit in the sun and play radio
Category
Serendipitous Discoveries
Summits on the Air
2019
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With winter rapidly approaching and questionable weather ahead, there would be few opportunities to get out and enjoy some back country and operate my ham radios. I have already activated all the easy summits around the region this year and so I had to locate something not done but easy. I didn’t want any hiking as my arm dislocation still needed more time to heal so a simpler drive-up site would be best. After reviewing the options, I discovered that Gwendoline Peak was a possible drive-up location and having never been activated it provided a great choice for the day.
The road to Gwendoline’s summit looked like it would be drivable right to the summit area and then one would just need to set up the gear. This was ideal. The one major obstacle was that it was located inside the UBC Research Forest - it was on private land. They had a visitor program, but it was limited to hiking along various trails, no bikes were allowed nor were dogs, vehicles or camp fires. This looked quite discouraging but I decided to send off an e-mail to the forest manager to see if one could get vehicle access. After sending a note explaining our activity and request, I was able to get permission to drive to the summit for Saturday. This was great news and I let my son know and my SOTA chasers.
Upon hearing of my access, Ralph asked to join the team for the activity and so the three of set off mid-morning on Saturday. The route was still not certain, but we were hopeful. Upon arriving at the gate to the forest I got out of the truck and entered my access to code to the gate. It opened! And so we were through the first obstacle. Now we had to find a route to the destination. Most maps were outdated but the latest back-country map book maps showed three possible routes to the final segment and so we followed the first of the chosen routes, it was the shortest and the early road looked promising.
As we continued the road diminished to maintenance level and as we entered low use area the road became a worn set of ruts. It was still quite drivable but not well used. The road continued to within a kilometer of the final road segment when it ended! This route came close to the summit but stopped abruptly with no access further. This was discouraging but, on our way here we did happen to notice a sign on the second route which stated it as the way to Gwendoline Lake which was very close to the summit spur. So not despairing yet, we back-tracked to the alternate route and started up that road.
This road was in much better condition and we were hopeful. After what seemed like a long drive, we arrived at the first of the lakes. The road continued past as the map showed and then swung south heading back toward the road that dead-ended on us. Right at the place it would have forked with the summit road the now the only road, it swung right and continued up the slope! It was now the access road. Great news. I continued driving up the spur, by now it was down to a pair of ruts along the road bed with small trees growing in the middle. I continued following the road, taking the left fork near the top of the way and soon we were heading due south to the final ridge and activation area.
The road played out right where my original maps showed, and Google Earth indicated. We were in the activation zone! The area was full of head height trees from replanting, but the road area was still clear, and we were able to park and set up a table and chairs. After planning how we would string the OCF wire antenna we got my fiberglass mast stretched out and the antenna attached. While Ralph and Nick were getting the HF antenna in the air, I got my 2m yagi set up and put out a quick call to John Bell who was hiking a quadruple summit run in Cypress. I managed to get him first call – he was on the second peak already – Mt. Hollyburn. Once logged, I helped the other two get the wire in the air and Ralph on the HF radio then we both got busy making more contacts. I managed John a second time once he reached the summit of Mt Strachan.
When we had finished our lunch and filled our log books with various contacts, Ralph even worked a station in New Zealand, we packed up the gear and looked to the side of the road in the direction of the posted summit. Our location was only about 7m below the summit peak and the area was quite broad so finding the exact high point in the brush would be hard. We decided to give it a bit of a go and so we pushed through some dense tree growth towards the summit location. We went about 75m when we came by a grouping of rocks which we decided might be the highest point. I decided to push in a bit further to see if the old growth area was higher but upon getting there, I wasn’t so sure it was much different. So, we decided to say we had reached the high point and set off back to the truck. It is easy to drop down hill too fast when returning and this was the case today as well. Fortunately, being aware of the tendency I managed to get us back to the road without much drift. It was a fun side excursion and it reminded us of how nice open forest is.
Once back in the truck we started back the way we came. I stopped to gather a few photos of a frozen pond and when we got down to the major road, we decided to visit Gwendoline Lake for a phot op. It was a very pretty setting and well worth the effort to visit. The final drive back to the gate went well though my truck was making a clicking sound while the 4x4 was engaged. So that will need to be looked into. The gate key unlocked the gate for us again and we were outside the forest, I gathered a few last photos before we started for home. It was a very pleasant day in the hills, the drive-up was very nice and we had some good success making contacts.