Warm weather, great people and some bushwhacking made for an amazing Saturday last week. I meet up with two other amateur radio operators to tackle a summit named Corkscrew Mountian. This is located an hour north west of Caroline, Alberta. Janelle and I hit the road the Friday prior to enjoy some camping and relax prior to Saturday's adventures. With that warm weather it was such a solid sleep in the roof top tent compared to -30 adventure about 2 months ago. Second plus was when we woke up we didn't need to drive 2.5 hours to get to the trail head.

As we packed up Mallen (VE6VID) and David (VE6DTS) showed up at our spot just off the gravel road. We finished packing up and headed to the trail head for todays Summits on the Air activation. Online there are a few different ways to get up to the summit. We choose the most direct route possible. This felt like a stair machine, gaining elevation insanely quick.

Janelle and I hit the summit first, found a sunny spot and setup. I jumped on 40meter again, and just like the other times the 40meter band was silent. Once David had jumped off 20meter I switched over and was able to get 4 contacts mostly from California.

I unplugged and Mallen setup of my antenna, and it was quiet. But then out of the blue something very exciting happened. He had a QSL from an operator in France. Ya thats right northern Alberta to France. Hopefully this is a sign of the band conditions to come in the coming year.

We enjoyed the sun for a while and then headed straight down, which as you can imagine took no time at all to get back to the truck.

Another activation in the books to score winter bonus points.