Last friday Marcial had to go to Arrasate (Gipuzkoa) and we decided to make some SOTA. As Marcial would had the morning busy, meanwhile I would activate Anporreta EA2/SS-045 and later, on the afternoon would make the new Kortaburu, also close to Arrasate.
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| path start |
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| Anporreta EA2/SS-045 paths |
That's the way we did it. At 07:15 am Marcial left me on the road at Kanpazar, just on the start of one of the paths to Anporreta. He followed his trip to Arrasate while I started climbing and enjoying the dawn. On my back I could see the Udalaitz waking up on the sunshine.
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| Udalaitz at dawn |
The path I chose (2,7km) starts quite easy. At the beginning, being on the northern side of the mountain, temp was cold and some puddles were frozen. The last kilometer, however, it turned to be quite abandoned, with fallen trees and a lot of brambles, which did it pretty difficult to hike. Luckily, somebody has left some white plastic markers on the trees, so I could find the final way to the summit.
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| Arriving to the summit |
The sun was already brighting, and despite the low temperatures, being no wind the summit seemed comfortable for so early activation. Just after arriving, I tried some calls on 145 FM without success. I had to be down to Arrasate al 12:00 UT to meet Marcial, so I set up the light HF equipment: HB-1B, 4Ah LiPo, 6m pole and Norcal Doublet.
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| HF rig |
After doing some HF CW during 1 hour, and not being sure about how much long could be the 5,5km descent, I packed all and started the way to Arrasate.
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| Beautiful fields |
This route was very much cared one, wide and well traced. So it was very easy to follow. On front of mine I could also see Aralar range, impressive mountain group at south. By the way Iñaki EB2GKK was there at Sarastarri EA2/SS-057 and while walking we made QSO on VHF. This was not S2S, as I have left the AZ, but we had a good chat anyway.
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| Aralar |
After almost two hours, I arrived to Arrasate at 11 UT. I had to meet Marcial at 12 UT, so I used that time to eat something and buy some meal (sandwiches, chocolate, and other delicatessen).
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| Kortaburu EA2/SS-061 |
While being up at Anporreta, I contacted Pedro EA2CKX, who lives at Oñati, just 7 km away from Arrasate, so we agreed to have a meeting after join Marcial in our way to the second summit of the day. As I met Marcial, we called Pedro, and at 12:30 we were to Oñati knowing one of the best EA2 chasers. We had some talk about SOTA, antennas, radios, etc. and then we followed our route to Kortaburu, just 2-3 km away. Before starting the hike, we had some food and water. Then, my second hike of the day started (the first one for Marcial).
This one is shorter but also steeper. 1,3 km path to arrive to the new referenced summit. On the final meters, I could feel the previous summit (I need to make more exercise and less smoking if I want to afford more than one summit the same day!)
Once at the summit, we set up antennas and rigs and again "to the work". I did only CW (the HB-1B pays its small weight having no SSB) while Marcial did both SSB and CW. Almost at the end of the activation we managed to contact Antonio EC2AG/P who was also activating Montaño, EA2/BI-066.
That was all. Back to the car and home. It is no usual for us to make these friday activations, and with such a good weather!
