Return to Iron Mountain

Ralph and I have activated Iron Mountain in the Summits on the Air program twice before. The walk up the service road to the cell tower is only 1.25km long and gains about 160m elevation. So it is an easy adventure when one feels like getting out but not pushing too hard. This time we returned in the warmer weather and the trees were in full leaf which gave a different feel to the walk. Neither of us had done much with SOTA this year having concentrated on the parks program, but we felt like having a bit more of an adventure today so we set out for the trailhead.

 We arrived at the end of the pavement to find the owner of the property next to the service road weed-eating the side of the road. Once we had parked and donned our packs we walked up to him to chat for a bit. He had lived there for 30 years and was quite enjoying his 6 acres on the side of the mountain. He has the odd bear visit but generally it is a very pleasant place to live. Continuing on, we started up the road and passed the locked gate. The walk went quickly with us needing only a single break at about the two-thirds point. The road was dry this trip where before it had some large puddles across the road.

Arriving at the summit after about a 30-minute walk we went our own ways to set up our stations. Ralph was using his standard HF radio and attached his mast to a tree like he has done twice before. I wandered over to the support building steps and set up my 2m yagi there. Soon I had my first station in the log. One of my regulars who I announce my activations to. He was quickly followed by another regular, a chap in Sequim Washington who is a prolific SOTA chaser. Next was club member Ken and after being on the air for 4 minutes I had my fourth contact. SOTA only requires 4 so the rest were for fun.

Shortly after noon I heard a chap flying his airplane in Washington. He was recording his contacts with a go pro while flying. He said I could review the contact at his YouTube channel later. I let him use the frequency for a while so he could get a number of stations. Once he was done, I resumed my calling. My next contact was a summit-to-summit contact with a chap west of Courtenay on the Island.  A few more contacts and then a second summit-to summit with VE7SGY (Bruce) on the summit just north of me. I then took a break, ate the rest of my lunch and checked on Ralph. He had 14 in his log and so we decided to pack up and head home. I returned to my station and decided to put out one final call. Four more stations responded in quick succession giving me a total of 18 contacts for the day. It was better than on some park activations and this on 2m only. Elevation and a week-end does help.

I packed up my equipment and took a few minutes to gather a few photos from the summit area. Unfortunately, the trees were overgrown around the summit so there is no view to be had from there or even the road up.  Once Ralph was packed, we started back down the road to the car. It was getting a bit warm which slowed us down a bit but going downhill still made the trip back much quicker. Back at the car we decided to head to the nearest Starbucks for a cool drink. The closest one was actually 10km away, such a backwater! The drive took us along Dewdney Trunk road rather than highway 7 and we made very good time to the store. The highway always seems to be busier and slower.

Once we had our cool drinks the rest of the drive went smoothly until Coverdale where we ran into the backups for the rodeo. We decided to divert to 168th street for the rest of the trip home and bypass the hoards crowding into the fairgrounds.  It had been a fun change from our parks activations and I do hope to do a few more summits before the end of summer.