I had been planning all along to participate in the CO-14er Event this year. This event is  organized by Bob/KØNR, for Portable Mountaintop Operation on the 54 official 14er summits (Summits higher than 4267m) in Colorado.  It was however uncertain until late Friday whether I would actually be able to do so. Since it is mainly a VHF/UHF event, I home-brewed a lightweight 4-element Yagi-Uda for 2m – you can read more about it in a separate blog entry.

I selected Mount Evans as a target since it is ‘only’ a 2.5h drive from my home QTH and it has several other SOTA peaks nearby… a good chance to bag more than one summit.

The Plan:
I planned an early morning (8:30 MST) SOTA activation of nearby  Gray Wolf Mtn. (4138 m/13602 ft),  hoping to be on the air by 11:00 MST on Mt Evans (4339 M / 14264 ft) via Mt. Spalding (13842 ft / 4219 m). A total of 5 miles (8 km) and 3100 ft (945 m) ASL.

I drove up to Summit Lake in the Mt. Evans Wilderness to start my hike. I left my car at 6:30 MST under blue skies but with a fierce and chilly wind. Wool hat and gloves felt nice.

There were only a few cars at the parking lot and a small herd of Bighorns observed my last preparations. I set my HT to 146.52 and 147.42 (Co-14er event primary frequency) hoping to catch any early  14er activators on my hike up. I moved quickly to warm up and passed only one group of hikers in front of me. The initial steep ascent towards Mt. Spalding had the desired effect and I could remove one layer of clothing under heavy breathing. I talked to two stations near Denver on 146.52 who were already aware of the event going on before I moved on.

I joined another hiker from Boulder who was also heading towards Gray Wolf Mountain. We continued our hike through the ‘wetlands‘ between Spalding and Gray Wolf. It’s a delicate endeavor to cross the fragile alpine tundra under any circumstances but with the wet area in front of us we had to pick our route carefully to keep our feet dry and our impact to a minimum. The remaining route is pretty straight forward, a steep and rocky final ascent and and we reached the summit at 8:30 MST as planned.

Just as I was setting up my HF antenna I heard W1DMH/Doug (a SOTA Mountain goat) calling CQ on 2m from Mt. Bierstadt – just ~2.5 miles S of me. My first S2S contact in the log :)

Thanks to decent propagation conditions, 20m contacts were easy to make and my log filled-up fast. I was just done with packing up my gear to continue towards Mt. Spalding, when I heard NM5S/Alan and WSØTA/Fred on 2m. These accomplished SOTA Mountain goats are normally not heard on voice frequencies – two more S2S contacts in the log and my first on the air contacts with Alan and Fred.

I was now 30 minutes behind my schedule and started to head down the mountain towards the ‘wet lands‘ again. For quite a while now, I had been hearing a dog barking towards the east of me. That’s well off the beaten path of Mt. Evans and I was wondering what was going on. The continuous barking was frantic at times so I finally decided to investigate and check what was going on… perhaps a runaway dog ? Hiker with dog in distress? It turned out to be nothing like that at all, just some morons climbers who decided to tie their dogs to a rock and go rock-climbing – it was not appreciated by the dogs at all.
Now I was really behind schedule and I rushed up Mt. Spalding, hoping to make good on some of the lost time. From Mt. Spalding I talked to KCØRPS on Quandray Peak and WE7C on Mt. Bierstadt. Coming up to the ridge-line to Mt. Evans, I could copy NØBCB/Bryan on Castle Peak (another 14er). Since I wanted a S2S contact I pressed on to the summit, not realizing that Bryan was already in process of packing up for the day.

I reached the summit of Mt. Evans at 11:35 MST and had my first contact at 11:37 MST with KDØWBB/Scott, a young ham in Loveland on 2m, using my new homebrew Yagi-Uda antenna.

My log from Mt. Evans:

Time:	Call:	Band:	Mode:	QTH:
17:37z	KD0WBB	144MHz	FM	Loveland
17:38z	NM5S	144MHz	FM	Mount Sheridan
17:38z	NA6MG	144MHz	FM	Mount Sheridan
17:40z	KT0AM	144MHz	FM	Huron Peak
17:47z	WT0C	144MHz	FM	Genesee Mountain
17:47z	N0PE	144MHz	FM	Mount Elbert
17:47z	AD0EO	144MHz	FM	Loveland
17:48z	W1DMH	144MHz	FM	Mount Sheridan
18:00z	KD0PQX	144MHz	FM	Lafayette
18:05z	K8KMV	144MHz	FM	Longmont
18:08z	KI6ASW	144MHz	FM	Challenger Point

At this time, most of the other 14er activators had already left the summit or they were packing up their gear. It was now past noon and rain clouds were moving in. With the strong monsoon season this year we are currently blessed with daily rain showers and thunderstorms (at least in northern Colorado).

I was in a comfortable position… with a road going all the way to the summit I was planning to hitch a ride back to Summit Lake where my car was parked in case of rain/thunderstorm. A friendly couple from Cincinnati gave me a ride. Shortly after reaching the car… the rain started :)

My final word:
Mt. Evans is very crowded thanks to the road going all the way to the top. Barking dogs, crying babies and screaming people (out of excitement) made it sometimes hard to copy the signals. Even though I was sitting at the very edge of the summit, I constantly had to be careful not to poke somebody in the eye with my antenna. Putting down the Yagi is also a bad idea… it might get crushed. That’s why I opted not to setup my HF antenna. If you decide to activate Mt. Evans, go early in the morning and if you are lucky, you might have the summit all to your self.

Feel free to leave questions and/or comments below.

73, Matt/KØMOS

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!! WARNING !! There are old mountaineers, and bold mountaineers... there are no old-bold mountaineers. Hiking and mountain climbing are potentially hazardous activities particularly in Colorado with its extreme elevations. I am not accepting responsibility for any death or injury resulting from activations based on my trip reports. Proper training, experience, and personal capability assessment is required - enjoy!