W6/ND-228 – Grass Valley Wilderness HP

I woke up in the back of my truck after a long night of camping shenanigans. E. was up making coffee and was on the fence about doing another hike after climbing Dome Mountain the previous day. I was too honestly. E. headed home and I said, “screw it, I’m basically already there”. I think that extra bit of motivation came from the fact that nobody had ever activated this summit before – I would be the first!

It took an hour to drive dirt roads which lead into a wilderness area. Near the summit there was a small area to park off the road. I left the truck and started slowly hiking up the hill. It’s about two miles round trip with 1,000′ of elevation gain, so pretty steep. There was several areas of loose talus and scree which required careful movements. I slipped multiple times on this one so maybe I wasn’t careful enough haha.

The top is a sharp ridge with enough space to put up a dipole or EFHW antenna. There is a register from 2012 which had more entries than Dome Mountain. Worked 15m and 17m on the new KH1. When I went to connect it to my 20m, 30m, and 40m EFHW antenna it had high SWR on all bands and I couldn’t figure out why; luckily I had a backup radio for 40m.

I headed down the same way I went up, sliding on the scree made for a quick decent. Once at the truck I back tracked to HWY 395, but made a few stops to explore some mining ruins and various other desert curiosities. By the time I got to the paved road it was dark. Perfect timing!

https://sotl.as/summits/W6/ND-228

Total distance: 2.15 mi
Max elevation: 4675 ft
Total climbing: 999 ft
Total time: 03:08:55
Download file: Grass_Valley_Wilderness_HP.gpx

Date:18/02/2024 |  Summit:W6/ND-228 (Grass Valley Wilderness HP) 

TimeCallsignBandModeNotes
22:327N1FRE21MHzCWS51N R31N
22:34JA1VVH21MHzCWS51N R51N
22:35WU7H21MHzCWS56N R54N
22:37K7MAS21MHzCWS599 R55N
22:38NN7M21MHzCWS55N R53N
22:41NT2A21MHzCWS52N R42N
22:44KF9D21MHzCWS57N R53N
23:02K2JB18MHzCWS51N R21N
23:07AD0WB18MHzCWS58N R55N
23:08W6TDX18MHzCWS58N R57N
23:09WW7D18MHzCWS58N R57N
23:10NA7ET18MHzCWS57N R599
23:30WB6POT7MHzCWS57N R5NN
23:31W6LEN7MHzCWS58N R599
23:32KN6OMN7MHzCWS58N R599
23:33WA7JTM7MHzCWS58N R55N
23:34KN6DMO7MHzCWS57N R57N
23:36NT6E7MHzCWS58N R57N