It has been a hot minute since I have written something for the blog. I have been hiding from the bad weather, the COVID and just being plain lazy. I am 100% okay with that, I had been going steady with bunch hobbies and projects and need a nice reset.
Janelle and I headed out to Canmore with her family for mothers day to make an attempt on Grotto Mountian SOTA summit. As luck would have it weather rolled in night before and most of the day dropping a decent amount of snow up high on the Mountian.
Janelle and I headed up to Deaths Head for a 2 point SOTA summit with Angus the dog. Our original plan was to drive around and access the direct summer route that is shown on SOTA maps. But when we went to turned off to get to the south side access it was gated and locked.
An early start to grab 2 points for SOTA before starting work for the day. Mallen (VE6VID) and I meet up at the bottom gate for 0800 to head up to the summit. This hike follows the oil and gas road for 90% of the hike and then deviates onto some 4x4 trials for the last 250meters of distance. We got up in a quick amount of time, way before our alerted time.
Raspberry Ridge fire lookout was the objective this past Saturday. Setting off from the parking lot at 0900 with Janelle and my long time friend Dex and his fiancé and dogo Teddy. We started the day off moving quickly getting to our lunch point which is the split for the long route or the short router up to the fire lookout. I could see the cornices I was warned about from Mallen and Ken who where up the week before had not come down yet. With this is opted for the safer route going the long way around and up the ridge.
Malen (VE6VID) headed out to the flat land off Saskatchewan to hit 5 summits and bring home 48 points. The first summit VE5/SP-004 (VE5/SP-004) was a first for Mallen and I. We where Un sure on the access but we where able to drive to the activation zone on a public access road. I jumped on 20meters calling CQ and they came in fast and heavy getting my needed contacts and the points. This was my first time activating a summit that had never been activated which was exciting.
Janelle and I headed out for a road ride the other night, before the snow and colder weather hit Calgary in typical spring fashion. With that we suited up and road out to bighill springs road and made a loop out of it getting about 62km on the bike in +17 weather. It was an awesome ride, and got better when we grabbed the most albertan selfie with a massive John Deer tractor.
Went out for a spin on the road bike for a longer ride to kick off the season. No beers where had this time till after there ride, unlike our pub rides over the last few months. We rode out from The Bike Shop north out towards Cochrane area enjoying the quiet rural roads. We finished the day with 70KM and about 667meters of climbing. It reall felt good to get out and sping the legs and clear the mind.
We headed out to do another Summits On The Air operation on two different summits. Summit one was VE6/HC-034 (Stoney Mountain) and summit two was VE6/HC-035 (Tunnel Mountain). We started out on Stony Mountian parking int he first main parking lot at MT Norquay
This past Sunday I headed out to k-country to hike a classic MTB route to play radio. We first Hit Powder Face trail, it was muddy mid way and then we found some snow and headed up to false summit to avoid this. Got up top and got contacts very quickly on 146.52 jumped on Jessies g90 for one HF contact and boom done 4 points.