W6/SS-423 – Butterbredt Peak

Butterbredt Peak was my first stop on a trip to activate several summits around the northern edge of the Mojave Desert and the south edge of the Sierra Nevada mountain range. I left Los Angeles for my trip late in the day which had me rushing to get up to the summit before 0:00 zulu. This also put me square in the hottest part of the day. The hike up Butterbredt started easy, but maybe a half mile in the path got steep and extremely sandy, to the point where I felt like I was on a sand treadmill, only making a few inches of progress for each step. Thankfully, this section was short and I was able to continue on. Along the way, fighter jets ripped through the sky along with the defining sound of their engines. I sat and watched them fly around for 10 minutes or so. The top was windy, which is expected on desert summits. I spotted via APRS and started calling CQ on 40M. Not too many takers. I moved to 30M and picked up one more contact, then moved to 20M. Picked up one more contact there. Just 4 contacts on 3 bands… Was my radio broken? Nope, there was a solar event which was blacking out HF. I hiked down the same way I came up, got into the truck and looked for a place to camp for the night.

https://sotl.as/summits/W6/SS-423