W6/CT-159 – Warm Springs Mountain

I activated Warm Springs Mountain on Winter Field Day. My original plan was to cycle up to my favorite local park and work on my terrible CW skills, but my pal Tim just took delivery of a new custom built Crust frame and wanted to ride up some hills. I can’t say no to a bike ride, so I packed up my new seat bag with 5 ice cold beers, put the radios in the pannier, and headed up to the summit. It’s roughly 6~7% grade and 6.5 miles to the top on an exposed fire road. At the top I was surprised to find a weather station, an old lookout platform, a small radio shelter with a short tower. We got there roughly 30 minutes before 00:00z, so time was spent on top of the tower enjoying cold beer. I setup the station and immediately heard stations wall to wall on SSB. Once a clear frequency was found, I self spotted via APRS, however the reply I got said the summit was invalid. Luckily I had a phone with data, so I was able to confirm on the SOTA site that I was indeed on a summit. Self spotting through the web gui didn’t work either, so I called on 2M to a local chaser requesting a spot – who couldn’t spot either! Turns out the W6 database was getting updated, so nobody could send spots out! I worked as many stations as I could on 20M (three, but hands were too frozen to write so I missed one in my log) which was difficult due to several stations running kilowatts. I made a few more on 2M, enough to qualify the peak. The ride down was fast and quite enjoyable. Looking forward to activating this one again!

https://sotl.as/summits/W6/CT-159

Total distance: 12.8 mi
Max elevation: 4030 ft
Total climbing: 3466 ft
Total time: 05:38:39

Download file: Warm Springs Mountain.GPX

Date:31/01/2021 | Summit:W6/CT-159 (Warm Springs Mountain)

Time	Callsign	Band	Mode	Notes
00:17	K5YAC	14MHz	SSB	WFD
00:21	W5TMC	14MHz	SSB	WFD
00:28	K6LDQ	144MHz	FM
00:36	KK6TDU	144MHz	FM

Start of the trailhead off Lake Hughes Road.

First view of the summit, it’s up there by the trees.

Sign for Warm Springs. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a spring, and it wasn’t warm.

Lookout platform, radio shelter, and short tower.

Don’t fall through! This tower has seen better days, all the antennas coax was cut.

EDIT: December 5th, 2022. I found old photos and a description of this old fire lookout tower. See link below. Photos and description borrowed from firetower.org without permission.

http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/ca/warm-springs-mountain-lookout-site/