2. Ham Radio

Grizzly Mountain (W6/NS-185), Grizzly Peak (W6/NS-196) SOTA Activations 5/30/2013

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Looking northward and down at the snow on that steep slope. Tower Rock is along the right edge of the shot.
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Looking northward and down at the snow on that steep slope. Tower Rock is along the right edge of the shot.

  • The SOTA Northern Sierra region logo. This logo is available on Northern Sierra T-shirts, sweatshirts, beer steins, mouse pads, etc. for SOTA participants who qualify for the Northern Sierra Award (offered by yours truly KU6J). The award rules are linked to from my page on QRZ.com. Today I wore my Northern Sierra sweatshirt, along with a SOTA cap kindly provided by Etienne K7ATN. Thanks Etienne!
  • Grizzly Mountain (W6/NS-185) and Grizzly Peak (W6/NS-196) are near each other on Grizzly Ridge, within Plumas National Forest. To get to them from Highway 70, turn onto Squirrel Creek Road which is approximately 8 miles east of Quincy, CA. The sign on highway 70 points to Bradys Camp but does not say "Squirrel Creek Road" on it. Take the national forest roads shown above which allow for a scenic loop. The roads colored purple or green are easy for 2WD vehicles. Rugged 2WD is required for the ones colored blue. Taylor Rock (W6/NS-222) is also in the area if you are looking for a 3-summit day. I did the loop counterclockwise on my ATV, activating Grizzly Mountain in the morning followed by Grizzly Peak in the afternoon.
  • Vehicle access to Grizzly Mountain ends at the trailhead shown above which is at the end of motorized trail 11M17 shown in blue. If you don't have a rugged 2WD vehicle then you can park and hike up it from the main road.
  • The beginning of motorized trail 11M17. Note that because Plumas NF has designated this route a motorized trail rather than a road, it will receive little if any maintenance and will likely get rougher in years to come.
  • Closeup of the 11M17 motorized trail sign
  • The end of 11M17 is a flat and wide dispersed camping site with plenty of shade and a fire ring. On this Grizzly day, I parked my Yamaha Grizzly here and hiked on up the mountain.
  • It is a short and easy hike up to the base of Tower Rock (which is the summit of Grizzly Mountain), although there are a few tangles of brush that you will need to make your way through. The dashed black lines are the GPS tracks from my hike up and back, and the dashed turquoise and white line is the activation zone.
  • Tower Rock on the summit ridge. I estimated it to be about 60 feet high.
  • The northwest side of tower rock still has snow on it.
  • Looking northward and down at the snow on that steep slope. Tower Rock is along the right edge of the shot.
  • It looks like one could climb Tower Rock without ropes from the east side, to the right of me (my left) in this shot. I didn't want to attempt this since I was alone so I operated from the summit ridge instead. The summit ridge is solid rock and 10-20 feet wide. This position is within SOTA's 80 feet deep activation zone since the rock is only about 60' high and the "saddle" between it and my position is no more than about 10' deep.
  • Sitting at my operating spot on the summit ridge with my Alexloop erected on a Buddipole shockcord mast. The mast base is crammed between the two rocks, and I added a few more small rocks to prevent it from turning. The smaller rock between the Alexloop and I made for a nice operating bench.
  • Base of the Buddipole mast. I didn't need to use all the sections so the rest stay bundled together at the bottom.
  • My operating position with the KX3 and logbook up on the "bench", and the Crazy Creek Hex 2.0 chair I brought along for extra comfort.
  • Another shot of my operating position with Tower Rock behind it.
  • A wider shot of the summit ridge to show how narrow it is. To the right (north) is a sheer cliff, while the south side is steep and rocky. A dipole or doublet wouldn't be a good choice for this summit because it would need to run east/west along this ridge, putting its maximum lobes north/south (nulls to east west where most of the chasers are).
  • Looking toward the north edge of the summit ridge. I'm on the high point of the ridge and it continues on quite a ways farther (out of view).
  • Grizzly Peak to the northwest as seen from Grizzly Mountain.
  • Sierra Buttes (W6/NS-139) in the distance. See my activation album for more information on it.
  • My SOTAWatch spots while on Grizzly Mountain. I called CQ on 40m as well, but no RBN skimmers picked me up so I didn't get spotted. No chasers found me either, so I made no QSOs at all on that band.
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