Every December/January, the Palouse Road Runners hosts two free “ultra” marathons we affectionately title the Pullman Winter Ultras. It’s a simple and relatively hands-off premise: you sign up for free and run anywhere between 1-4 eight-mile laps around town, no matter the weather.
And the weather in Pullman this time of year can be heinous.
I race-directed this event but because it was minimal support, I basically hung out at a coffee shop all day and gave some check-in props to runners as they came by every hour or so.
This was my first year directing the thing and we had a solid turnout of about 30 participants. The weather was relatively prime until rain started at around hour five. Everyone had a solid time and I’m stoked to see who returns for the January edition.
Another weekend with decent weather. Another first activation.
This time it was Smoot Hill, super-close to home and the only reason I hadn’t tackled it until now: I wasn’t exactly sure anyone was allowed up there. It’s technically on WSU property as it is a nature preserve, but after speaking a cycling buddy who mountain biked up there a couple of years ago and spoke to someone who manages the land, as long as we’re respectful and not on motorized vehicles they’re generally okay with it.
Good enough for me.
The walk was quite pleasant via a cut path through fields. A lot of predator scat along the path and a large footprint (see photo below) that might just be a big dog but I’m not exactly sure. It was a brisk but bright November afternoon in the upper 30’s. Parking at the Rose Creek Nature Trail, I crossed the road then crossed the fenceline making my way about 1.5 miles to the AZ.
Up top, the wind was a thing and the clouds began to roll in. Thankful that I always keep a spare jacket in my SOTA bag, I layered up before getting the antenna rigged and on the air. Not wanting to waste much time, I spotted myself on 40m and after a couple of minutes the chasers came in hot. Eight of ’em, one right after the other and signal reports 5.5+ all around.
Giving the SOTAwatch feed a look to see if there were any S2S possibilities (nothing that materialized), it was time to get going. I was starting to get a little chilly and knew that Corrie was waiting for me to get back so we could pick up apples at the WSU organic farm. The hustle back down the hill was uneventful besides a mule deer sighting.
The temps have officially dipped and we’re in the shoulder season of unpredictable and generally unfavorable weather. Saturday looked to offer a bit of a window, so I dug out a rough plan to work two more unactivated W7I summits: NI-268 and NI-269.
This pair was super close to one another and road access seemed open, and it was indeed. The drive in via Winfall Pass Road was downright pleasant with some of the widest, smoothest dirt I’ve been on all year. I parked in a saddle right between the two summits which I internally referred to as the ‘ham cleve’ and flipped a coin on which to tackle first.
The southern summit, 268, was a nice roadwalk up to the very top. There had been some active logging recently as I passed multiple smoldering burn piles. The AZ was wide open with a few standing trees and plenty of downed branches to which I could attach the ends of my antenna wire.
After 5 QSOs I packed up and started booking it to 269. The initial approach was much the same but this summit was still heavily treed and the roads suggested by the historical maps were no longer there. Things got thick quick, and once I found myself within the AZ I began looking for somewhat of a clearing in order to get a wire up.
Due to limited space, I opted to just run my EFHW as a 20/10 sloper (rather than the usual 40/20/10 inverted-v). It got the job done with 5 QSOs on 20m (including 2 summit-to-summits) and 2 more QSOs on 10m. Clouds rolled in and the temps really dipped during this one, so after exhausting the quiet 10 meter band I tore down and got back down the hill to the car.
Next time, I would follow the two-track as far as I could towards 268 before bushwhacking a little as possible straight up the hill. Not sure it’s really worth it for 1 point, but everything else about this activation was pleasant so I’m sure I’ll do it again next year.
We’re full into the fall weather here with temps in the 40’s and 50’s, leaves doing their thing and the sun setting at like 5:30pm. It’s fine, it’s all fine.
My running/hiking shoe situation has been a bit unchecked this past year. I don’t know how many miles I’ve put into what but the shoes are feeling thin and that’s usually a good sign they need to go. This time around I decided to just commit and replace all of the shoes at once. Real clean slate, fresh-start shit.
For the record: they’re all Altra shoes. (‘cept for the old boots)
Starting in the front are my trainers. Pair on the left are Altra Provisions from last year. I actually had two pairs: one for the road and one for the gym.. and while the gym ones are still in use, these light blue roadies have been swapped for a pair of Torin 7’s.
Top right are my old yellow Lone Peaks. Love these things and have gotte my money’s worth out of ’em. They’ve been replaced by a bright, near-ugly pair of TIMP trail runners. The only reason I didn’t get new Lone Peaks was because they were quite literally, all out of stock. I’ve had TIMPs before and liked them, so I’m hoping these will do their job.
Finally, top left, my old hiking boots: Oboz something-or-other. They’ve been fine, mostly. Sometimes they’ve given me horrendous blisters, sometimes they’ve been alright. But never what I would call “comfortable”. Also, I’ve been wearing them on winter treks for probably the past 6-8 seasons. Their replacements: Altra Lone Peak all weather high tops. I’m not a high top guy but when you’re trudging through snow, you gotta keep your feet as dry as you reasonably can.
I’ll try to remember to file an end-of-season report on these suckers with how they performed. Hopefully I’ll put them all to good use.
One of my “ten essentials” when heading out into the backcountry is my Garmin inReach Mini 2. It’s been an incredibly useful tool for getting texts out to my partner (or whomever) when completely out of cell service, which tends to be quite frequent ’round these parts. Aside from the convenience of friendly texts, it provides a sense of security as an oh shit device incase things get real bad and self-rescuing is not an option.
Downside: the little sucker tends to fly out of pockets as I’m biking down bumpy trails or ‘shwacking through thick vegetation. Using a biner to clip it onto a pack is 100% advisable and I follow that advice 90% of the time.
Last month I got out for one last bikepacking overnighter before the cold season fully took grasp. My inReach was tucked into a little pocket on the side of one of my handlebar bags and lived there the entire trip–sans clip. The ride was a rough one, both in road surface and in general effort. We were pretty spent by the end of it.
Following weekend as I prepped for a hike it occurred to me that the inReach wasn’t anywhere I expected it to be.
Not in my usual drawer of outdoor electronics. Not connected to my SOTA backpack. Not in my bike bag pocket where I had the weekend before. Not floating around in the back of the Honda. And not in my buddy’s truck.
Sure, when we were bombing down that one hill on Day 2 and hit some of the roughest washboard this side of the Cascades, the little guy musta jumped out my bag and bounced his way to freedom. I immediately began looking for a replacement, but it hurt to think about paying for a brand-new one… even though, it’s invaluable.
I gave it a week. Then two. Occasionally looking through the local Craiglist for postings of a found, or even recognizable for sale, inReach. Nada.
Well fuck me if just a few hours ago I didn’t go looking for a usb power brick when there it was. Sitting right in the drawer where it shouldn’t be, but I can see how it seemed logical at the time in my post-ride haze.
All this is to say, I’m glad that I’ve found my inReach. And I swear that I’ll never travel with it unsecured again.
Not shocking to anyone, I’m a real nerd. As a graphic designer with an artistic vein, I do a fair amount of sketching, scribbling, drawing and writing. Back in my first career doing field biology work, I documented all of my field data/recordings by hand with a pencil and a Rite-In-The-Rain book. Back in those days (the early 2000’s) computers were too heavy and unreliable to be hauling around in the wilderness and we were texting via T9, if texting at all.
That dependency on hand-written notes has stuck with me through the years as I’ve had numerous hard drives and memory cards fail. I also happen to have pretty decent handwriting. My go-to pencil has been some variation of Pentel, but I do enjoy hefty drafting pencils, wooden pencils, and the high school familiarity of a Bic.
Pentel P209
This is the pencil that I’ve gone back to for decades. Well, sort of; I was a 0.7mm guy for the longest time (and still am, at work) but in my personal life, aka. The Field, I have found that it’s better to have something a little more robust.
The Good
The Meh
Reliable.
The eraser.
Solid clicks.
Pointy-end is too pointy.
Lightweight (9g)
Physically thin.
Sumo Grip
I have been using Sumo Grip erasers for years. Not sure where I originally heard of them, but they’ve been fine and the name always gives me a little grin. When I saw they had a shorty pencil, I jumped on it.
The Good
The Meh
Near-perfect length.
Heavier than the Pentel. (14g)
Precise lead feed.
Good grip.
Pilot Dr. Grip
This line of pen has been my go-to for quite some time. Outside of a Sharpie, these pens are my favorite so I naturally was excited for the pencil variation. The pencil is… fine. I don’t love it, but I don’t hate it.
Found a couple of not-yet-activated summits just north of me and across the state line into Idaho: Moses Mountain W7I/NI-207 and Tensed Benchmark W7I/NI-223. The two activation zones are only about 5.5km from eachother and the weather for this day was looking prime so I figured this would be a good opp for my first two-summit day.
The drive out wasn’t too bad. AWD definitely needed and the clearance on my Honda Element was plenty. It was logging country and whether or not people were supposed to be out there was a little questionable, but nothing explicitly posted no trespassing, so I parked down the hill from Moses Mountain and bit off the main road.
Tensed BM was first and very nice hike along two-track trail pretty much the entire way. At the summit a big rock cairn and that felt like a good spot to set up the radio and get cracking. After 8 QSOs I packed up, at my slice of leftover pizza from earlier in the week, and headed back towards Moses Mtn.
The trail up towards Moses’ peak fizzled out quickly it became a bushwhack up the side of the hill. Nothing impassable, but I got some good leg scratching today. After getting 7 QSOs in the bag, I decided it was probably time to start my way back down. The air was chilling and the sun was going down on this early fall day.
Big thanks to WW7D, my #1 all time chaser, who sought me out on both summits today.
The ridge hike up to Tensed Benchmark.AZ of Moses Mountain.Tensed Benchmark cairn.Post-activation cheers.
Hit my buddy Keith with the idea for one last quick gravel overnighter. He fired back pretty quickly with a route he’d had in his back pocket; it was 100 miles through some really cool high desert country, camping at Escure Ranch where I had spent a weekend working the Washington State Salmon Run just a month prior.
The weather was looking prime with temps in the mid-60’s and no rain, but oh my, the wind forecast. And the wind did not disappoint. The day one ride was 100% into the wind and that shit was pushing back at 15-20+ mph. That’s significant when you’re already weighed down with 30 pounds of bikepacking gear & food. Not gonna lie: that was a real grind. The last 15 miles or so was a mental struggle. And then we got to camp.
I guess we’re not camping alone…
As we soon learned it was opening weekend for deer season and the typically ghost town empty BLM campground was teaming with trucks, trailers, and blaze orange. At that point, there was no plan B so we rolled in, got some looks, found a spot and set up our tents.
A light dinner, mild weather, and some shared Scotch before an early bed time. The return ride would be shorter in distance with the wind at our backs. It was a solid weekend resulting in some tired legs and refilled souls.
For the first time in my adult life, I have found myself without a dog companion. I rescued my first dog when I was in college, about 22 yrs old (Kloe, the best dog in the world and I still miss her dearly). Since then I’ve had as many as four dogs at once, two separate times.
Now, we’re taking a little break from being a dog-centric household. It’s freed up our weekends, weeknights, and ability to travel. And, we honestly were just so sad after losing our old dogs these past few years we couldn’t stand the thought of going through that again.
I have started volunteering with the local Humane Society as a dog walker; twice a week, I take a little time out of my workday and walk a doggo. It’s truly been fulfilling, and I’m going to go ahead and share my new dog friends here.
Popping up to Spokane to drop my mom off at the airport after her visit; might as well get in a SOTA. Krell Hill W7W/WE-021 was in a familiar area, I’ve hiked the Rocks of Sharon before and this AZ was just the next hill over from that. A quick 1.7-ish miles up (it was steep) led me to an area below a bunch of quite large teevee antenna towers.
The day was WINDY and warm, probably upper 60s. I found a good spot to park it next to some very large rock structures that I hoped might act as a bit of a windbreak. Mast deployed, wire up, and away we go.
The 20m band was rocking. I bopped around a bit to try find some POTA activators looking for contacts and nabbed three of ‘em, getting relatively decent signal reports in return: 42, 59, 59. I wasn’t sure how much the giant antenna array directly above me was going to affect my waves, man.
The 40m band, however, was dead quiet. Odd. I went ahead and spotted myself and quickly was hit up by my #1 chaser, WW7D who gave me a not-so-great 3-1 report; I guess there was a reason this band wasn’t seeing any action. I then heard N7KOM call loud and clear, whom I acknowledged but never heard a reply. Again, I’m blaming the band. A couple of more hunters connected with me and that was about it.
I got all I needed, wasn’t hearing anyone else, and needed to hit the Trader Joe’s before making the 90-minute drive back home. Packed it all up and called it a day.
This was a super easy summit to access, both trailhead and hike-wise. I’ll remember it early next year as I think it would make for a good winter SOTA.
This upcoming weekend is the Washington State QSO party fondly known as the Salmon Run. For the uninitiated, a state QSO party is a friendly radio contest where operators try to make contacts with all or as many of the counties in the state as they can. Some counties would naturally be more difficult to contact based solely on low numbers of participants. This is all new to me so I’ll be learning via the trial-by-fire method.
And because bikes, I’m going to be doing this “expedition style” by cycling around dirt roads & trails with my radio gear. I have identified a good general area to operate from that spans a couple of high-demand counties: Whitman and Adams. Rock Creek Recreation Site has a couple of water falls, a rough but relatively flat trail system, and allows for camping so I can crash overnight.
Once arriving to the parking/camping area early Saturday morning, I’ll head north about six miles to Revere Wildlife Area which happens to be a POTA activation spot in Whitman County. As this is nothing I’ve ever done before, I’ll probably sleuth around the frequencies a bit and make a few random contacts in order to get the exchange down. Then I’ll go ahead and spot myself for the park and see what happens.
At some point I’ll probably get tired of sitting there and will move west into Adams County; there are a couple of lakes around that might be nice to set up at. Once I’m feeling mostly done for the day, I’ll ride back to the car for dinner and get camp set up. As the evening comes and the band conditions change, I’m hoping that I can get onto 80-meters and make some close-proximity contacts… we’ll see how successful that is (I’ve yet to get on 80 meters).
Sunday morning will be a drive south towards Washtucna where I’ve found a SOTA summit in Franklin County. This is going to be a bike (maybe a little hike) activation. I don’t know how much time I can commit to hanging out here but we’ll just see how it goes.
The Gear List:
Radio Equip.
Camp Comforts
Consumables
ICOM 705
Crazy Creek chair
homemade sandwiches
Dually 80–10 EFRW + 40/20/10 EFHW
NRS Snooze Pad
jerky & gorp
Wolf River Coils SOTA Special
Thermarest 20F down bag
breakfast oatmeal
MFJ-1976 120″ whip
JetBoil
bottle of wine
Bioenno 3Ah
Birkenstock EVA sandals
spf 50 sunscreen
Dakota 7Ah
Harbor Freight 400W inverter
tea & instant coffee
ICOM 50A handheld
Paperback
+++
Done and dusted. The weekend was a success in that I got on the air, made a bunch of great contacts and thoroughly enjoyed myself. There was some good riding and a few minor mishaps, but that’s what field work is! In the end I logged 82 QSOs in 32/39 counties and made my very first 80m contacts. Also spotted about two dozen mule deer and three coyotes over the two days.
Naturally, I’ve been spending a fair amount of time looking at the map of my surrounding summits, plotting my next weekend. Prospect Peak W7I/NP-265 was this past weekend’s target; my brother-in-law was in town with his gravel bike so I selfishly plotted a rideable activation and invited Pete, my local riding buddy. The three of us met up in nearby Potlatch, Idaho where we refilled water bottles and watched the near-distant storm lightening and thunder.
The ride from Potlatch was about 14 miles with 2,350 ft of gain taking us near the activation zone. It was a surprisingly good route with good amount of climbing but nothing depleting. Once we got near the top, we stashed the bikes in bushes and shwacked the last 200 ft or so up to the summit.
On top I unrolled the Packtenna 20m EFHW, got it up in the air, spotted myself and almost immediately nailed down five contacts. The calls dried up and, without any other bands to work (and with riding buddies starting to look bored), I packed up and we rolled back out.
This was my 5th SOTA activation and, besides some 2m VHF, all of my HF contacts have been on 20m because… well that’s the only antenna I have. This is something I want to change so that I can work more potential chasers. There’s a project in my future.
Thank you to my chasers: KI7QEK, KJ7NDY, WB6POT, AG5HV, KF9D
