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

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

So, this hike was kinda special in the since that the summit has never been activated before. Additionally, after 250 SOTA activations under my belt, I’ve never gotten a first activation. Since I was camping and hiking around in the area, bagging this peak was a priority.

My hiking partner E. drove up from Los Angeles very early in the morning to meet me at the place I was camping near Fremont Mountain. From there, we got in the truck and headed over to the trailhead, which was clearly marked with a hiking register. From here we traveled a bit west to check out some petroglyphs, then east to get back on an old jeep trail which got us closer to the bottom of Dome.

Hiking up past the jeep trail was steep, with loose rocks and several false summits. I stopped several times to rest and enjoy the views as we ascended from the desert floor. It was windy and cool. At the summit, I used my new Elecraft KH1 with the telescoping whip for the first time ever on the 15m band, then to 17m.

Relentless cold wind was getting to me and E. We signed the summit register which was placed in 1979 and started the trek down. Caution needed to be used going down as rocks were quite loose. Once down the steep part we jumped back on the old jeep road and headed back to the trailhead. Along the way I think we found the steam well which I’ve seen on maps. Unfortunately, there was no longer any steam that we could find.

https://sotl.as/summits/W6/ND-196

Date:17/02/2024 |  Summit:W6/ND-196 (Dome Mountain) 

After activating Government Peak, I headed over to El Paso Peaks for another easy activation. Getting here was pretty simple; make a left turn on Motocross Road from Hwy 395 and take it all the way to a commercial communication site at the top of a hill. The road is paved, but very rough – so much that people have been driving off to the side where it’s much smoother. Once there, I parked in a large area between building and started hiking over to the summit by following a jeep trail, eventually breaking away and heading to the highest point.

At the top was a narrow knife edge ridge where I strung out my linked 40m EFHW antenna. Weather was perfect. These desert summits can be absolutely brutal with high wind and hot/ cold temps so I was happy to relax a bit while waiting for the UTC day to change. Worked 20M and 40M CW. After running the pileup I packed everything up and went back to the truck the same way I came. I took a bit of time at the communications site to look at an old AT&T long lines tower which had been striped of it’s antennas. From there I headed over to Randsburg, stopped at The Joint for a few beers and a smash burger before heading out to my camp for the night.

https://sotl.as/summits/W6/ND-232

Date:17/02/2024 |  Summit:W6/ND-232 (El Paso Peaks) 

I spent the weekend camping in the area and planned 4 or 5 summits to hike while I was out there. It took me some time to actually leave the house, so by the time I got to the desert it was much later than I would have liked. As such, I started my SOTA day with the easiest one – Government Peak. This is basically a drive up, however, I took many wrong turns on the maze of roads. Recent rains washed out a chunk of one such road and my rear tire fell into the resulting hole, and with an open differential the tire just spun. I needed 4wd to get out. Not far from where I got stuck, I stopped the truck and hiked the remainder of the road up. You could drive straight to the top, but I was in the vehicle for a few hours already and wanted to stretch out a bit.

The top is a narrow ridge with a few communication equipment shelters and some towers. I couldn’t locate a benchmark, but perhaps it was behind a fence. I stretched out an EFHW antenna and leaned my mast on an unused utility pole to support the wire. Worked 7m and 14m CW; didn’t bother with 2m FM on this one. Wanting to get one more summit in before it got dark, I packed up the equipment and headed to the paved road. This would be a good one to do in the summer as you get 3 extra bonus points and the risk of environmental exposure can be reduced by driving to the top.

https://sotl.as/summits/W6/ND-224

Date:16/02/2024 |  Summit:W6/ND-224 (Government Peak)

This was the second summit E and I climbed for the 2024 So.Cal Winter SOTA Fest. We parked the truck in a small box canyon and scrambled up a wash to a ridge line, at which point it became a class 2 hike, eventually leveling out flat again. The top is large and flat, so plenty of room for antennas. Worked 40M and 2M only as it was pretty windy and the temperature was dropping quickly as the day was coming to an end. We scrambled down a different way which was kinda sketchy. I recommend the ridge route over just going straight down. Back at the truck we headed over to the camp to meet the others crawling around the hills in the area. The weather forecast predicted the temps in the low 30’s with strong wind. E and I noped out of that situation, got a hotel room in Barstow, and had a nice dinner at a pretty good Mexican restaurant.

https://sotl.as/summits/W6/SD-087

Date:12/01/2024 |  Summit:W6/SD-087 (4590) 

Spy Mountain is right next to Giant Rock – the largest freestanding boulder in North America and, perhaps, the largest free standing boulder in the world. Or, at least it was before a big chunk broke off in 2000. It was a sacred place for Native Americans back in the day and has some interesting history which is more recent that revolves around aviation, UFOs and other conspiracy theories.

I parked the truck in a super sandy area by a rocky ravine that leads to the top, maybe an eighth of the way around Spy. You probably want 4wd here or park out by the trail before hitting the sand. Heading up to Spy was slow, as it was boulder hopping all the way up. Recent rains created puddles between rocks some areas, and I was surprised to find some rather large desert sage bushes and various blooming plants along the way. At the very top it was pretty windy. I found the summit register, signed it, then setup my antennas and tucked behind some rocks to operate 7m, 10m, and 20m. On the way down I tried a different line to make it some kinda loop, but you can loop so much in a ravine.

https://sotl.as/summits/W6/SD-220

Date:26/01/2024 |  Summit:W6/SD-220 (Spy Mountain)