Outdoors

Continuing with my SOTA exploits. This time my target was W6/NC-150, Black Mountain located in Rancho San Antonio county park near Cupertino, CA. The summit is accessible via 11.2 mile out and back PG&E trail. Elevation gain is 3146 feet. Beware of poison oak, ticks, rattlesnakes, mountain lions and feral software engineers wandering into the park from Silicon Valley.

I have already tried to activate Black Mountain few months ago but was not able to copy call signs fast enough. Was fairly optimistic about the activation this time as I expected quite a few folks to participate in the Field Day contest. Also I can copy a tad better now.

Welcome back folks. One thing I never mentioned before is my master’s degree in Radioengineering. Weirdly enough despite being fascinated with wireless communications from the very early age I didn’t get into amateur radio until recently. Just always thought passing exams is not quite worth it. Plus while learning to copy Morse code had been always on the list of things to do before pegging out I just ‘never had time for it’.

About a year ago, I was looking for a new walkie-talkie to take on hiking trips so our group had some means of communicating in no cell phone reception areas. While researching available options I realized it makes sense to get licensed to get access to amateur radio frequencies.

As you have noticed I continue to trail off the paved path of the technically inclined blog and venture into hiking/mountaineering Internet backcountry. The reason is I’m an extremely lazy guy who promised to get back to Shasta almost a year ago. It’s time to be back as promised!

Why this post in this blog? - I am generally trying to keep this blog technically inclined. Researching information on one day mt. Whitney hike I was able to find bits of useful information here and there but no ‘end-to-end product’ so to say. This post is an attempt to decrease amount of googling you need to do. Plus doing this hike in one day wasn’t a cakewalk so quite naturally I need to brag a bit, please bear with me.

Disclaimer - use the information as well as anything you find on the Internet as a baseline. Mountaineering is an inherently dangerous activity. Be prepared, be cautious and be lucky. No book or Internet publication is able to provide you with a hands on experience.

Sup guys I’m back and I have something for you nerdy hikers. If you’re impatient enough please feel free to skip to the bottom of the post to get the details.

Few weeks ago I’ve made an attempt to summit mt. Shasta in northern California - from Bunny flats, via Horse camp, 50/50, Helen lake, Red banks. Reached the bottom of Misery hill (4km point) and turned back.