Capturing the Art of Nature
Mount Tolmie in the heat
A short visit to the summit area before we checked into our hotel
Category
Parks on the Air
2022
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Between arriving by ferry, eating lunch and then checking into our hotel there was a window of time to spend pursuing some short adventure. Lately it has been doing some radio activity. Last trip I went to Mt Douglas for summits on the air. This trip it would be Mount Tolmie for Parks on the air. Band conditions have not been good and we were in the midst of a heat wave so sitting out on a dusty patch of dirt baking while not being heard didn’t have much appeal. But one had to at least check out the site.
Once we had finished lunch, we made straight for the Tolmie Park and summit area. It took only a few minutes to drive there and soon I had picked a parking spot and started out of the car. The views from there were quite nice but I was on a mission and the day was too hot to just look around and get hot. So, I quickly wandered over to one of the two picnic tables I had spotted on the satellite maps. Both had a bit of shade and so I dropped my first load of gear at the table and went to get the rest. On return the chap at the other table left and as it was more shaded, I moved over to it. Soon I had the antenna in the air and I could hear a few stations on the band.
I tried to reach a few other park activators and one was quite strong none could hear me. So, I moved to a clear frequency and started calling. I soon had a response from another park activator and then a station in Ohio. Over the next half hour, I managed to pull in 10 stations so I was successful in activating the park. I kept going for a bit longer to get an eleventh station but the heat was wearing and I decided to quite the calling. I looked over the spots and tried for a few other parks activators eventually reaching one and logging my second park for the day. I now had 12 contacts and it was time to get to the hotel so I shut things down and packed up the gear in the car.
The park was activated and I managed a few photos but I really need to come back to gather some more photos from the summit area as the location is very pretty. If it wasn’t so hot, I would have enjoyed wandering the area a bit longer.