Mt. Emma had been on my radar for awhile, but the lower elevation and lack of shade pushed this down my list until cooler months arrived. My wife and I wanted to get out of the house, so this was a perfect spontaneous activity on a cool November day. Start on Mt. Emma road – there is a small parking area directly across from the trailhead, and a small sign lets you know you’re at the right place. At first the trail winds through chaparral up the first hill. After about 10 minutes of hiking, you will discover the trail was replaced with a recent fire break, most likely in response to the Bobcat Fire. Follow the fire break all the way up to the summit. It’s quite steep, my GPS reported a 15% ~ 30% grade. At the top, I found the summit marker, but no benchmark. Maybe it was destroyed by a land clearing machine? I also observed red fire retardant on the ground, the kind dropped form aircraft. Interestingly, it appeared that this was dropped before the land was cleared. I setup a long wire antenna into my Yaesu 817, self spotted via APRS. Made a few contacts on 20M, tried 17M with no luck, then moved to 40M and made several more with one summit to summit. I look forward to activating this again in a years time to see how the plants recover. Maybe I should plant a native tree up there?

https://sotl.as/summits/W6/CT-029

Download file: Mt.Emma.GPX

Date:20/11/2020 | Summit:W6/CT-029 (Mount Emma)

Time	Callsign	Band	Mode	Notes
21:05	W0MNA	14MHz	SSB	55 59
21:06	AC1Z	14MHz	SSB	22 55
21:07	KD8KDB	14MHz	SSB	22 55
21:08	WB7BWZ	14MHz	SSB	53 59
21:09	W5ODS	14MHz	SSB	55 59
21:44	NG6R	7MHz	SSB	55 59
21:44	W7USA	7MHz	SSB	55 59
21:45	K6RIN	7MHz	SSB	33 59
21:46	N0RSR	7MHz	SSB	59 59
21:48	K6LDQ	7MHz	SSB	54 59
21:49	NQ7R	7MHz	SSB	55 55
21:50	W6DT	7MHz	SSB	44 45 S2S W6/SN-049
21:51	KL7HM	7MHz	SSB	33 59
21:53	K6YK	7MHz	SSB	55 59
21:55	WB7ULD	7MHz	SSB	51 55