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Cerro Brillante, W5N/CO-014, on Wednesday, February 26, 2025, we plan to depart my QTH at 0800 en-route to trail head parking. All roads up are SUBARU capable. see GPX drive. From parking its a .8 mile hike along a ridge line to the summit. see GPX hike. Nice summit with, good views, that sits alone on the southern boarder of the lava flows. Weather will be sunny and warm with little wind. QRV around 1830 UTC. 73 all and enjoy previous pics WB5USB Geo..

Great weather as Don and I headed out to W5N/CO-011 this morning. Sunny skies, no wind and good temps. The drive to trail head parking is SUBARU capable except the last half mile or so. Must have high clearance. From parking we took the .4 mile hike up the side of the crater to the top. The climb is steep even taking a circular path counter clockwise around the side. Lots of deer trails to follow up to the top. Don set up ops on the east side of the crater while I set up ops on the west side. Saw a nice heard of Elk on the way down. Nice summit. Turns out this summit is on the continental divide. see pics 73 all and thanks chasers... Geo WB5USB

Action Plan: W5N/CO-011 Cerro Lobo Saturday, February 22, 2025 With warmer weather at lower elevations I picked Cerro Lobo. We will depart my QTH at 0800 for the 2.5 hour drive to trail head parking. see GPX file drive From parking its a .3 to .5 mile hike to the summit. 20 min see GPX file Hike QRV should be around 1830 UTC. Weather should be sunny with winds around 5mph and temps high 40's to low 50's. The road up to parking might be SUBARU capable, but if I remember correctly, a couple of places require high clearance. As always anyone wishing to join us is welcome. 73 all WB5USB Geo..

Couldn’t resist creating the SOTA hat photo. Beautiful weather up there today, ZL2AGY on 10m was icing on the cake. 73/72 John K1JD

Mostly sunny as we headed out to summit parking in Squirrel One. Don's Land Rover had no problems today negotiating the snowy road up to parking. Snow was only on the north facing slope so once on top mostly clear. It was cold and windy on top so I borrowed Tim's extra Boothy and with my snowmobile suit on, quite comfy. I did not have cell coverage at my op site so I did not get a chance to text Carol for a contact. Tim, however did get a spot out to Carol. Did not take any pics today so I'll just send a couple of previous ones. Great little summit. 73 all WB5USB Geo...

Tim, Don , and I plan to activate W5N/SE-026 Blue Bird Mesa Wednesday February 12. Meet a my QTH around 0800 then take the drive up to summit parking. QRV around 1800 UTC. Ranger station informed Don that the roads might be wet or muddy in a few spots. Drive up from the Hwy is short. Scott , NM5SW, might join us, and if he does will be driving his Bronco. Nice to have back up. Weather will be sunny, cold and windy. Temps in the 30's. 73 all WB5USB Geo

Fred – I am encroaching on 70 y/o here and don’t feel “nails tough” anymore. – kd5kc <<< speaking as an athletic coach… and now 80 years of age myself: I am glad to have completed the Pikes Peak marathon 12 times, last time when I was 67 yrs old. There are plenty of people who ran it even after age 80. I also ran the R-2-R-2-R at age 67. But I digress… Ashby Harper was headmaster of Albuquerque Academy which had its own Olympic size indoor pool. Nice. He was a swimmer. He had an ambition to swim the English Channel. He retired from Academy and then swam the English Channel, at age 66, the oldest to do it at that time. In 1992, at age 76, he defeated a field of much younger swimmers in a, well… to quote his obituary: “Somewhat later, poor Ashby raced a younger swimmer to a West Coast open water finish and touched him out only to die on the sandy beach… As of 2002, he remains the oldest English Channel swimmer” … my coaching viewpoint: it ain’t what you can still do, it is what you can recover from. fd

Don and I attempted W5N/GW-008 , Corner Mountain, on Saturday. It was a long drive, over 5 hrs just to get to trail head parking. Actually no trail at all. Last several miles was slow go over very rocky FS roads. Saw a flock of wild turkeys on the way up along with lots of deer. Once on top we hiked down the ridge a ways to check out the easiest way up the summit, which is covered with dead fall. Contacted Dale, AAOY, and found out he had parked down off the ridge line near a lake. Said the hike was rough. We did not have enough time to hike up to the summit and then back down before it would be dark so we decided in order to get this one we would need to stay over night in Reserve and start out early. Looked like a nice summit (see pics). Get this one in the summer. 73 all Geo

Worked Brian, NM5BG, activating in California, on forty-meters… and Doc called my attention to K9ROB who is visiting from Anchorage, Alaska, and had alerted to activate the Organ Needle, W5N/OR-001. The needle is a challenging hike. I activated it in 2014 oh HF, Alan and Mike activated it in 2016 on 2M. Those are the only activations of this well known high point. Rob posted for 20M SSB only and I would not have expected to hear him. As luck would have it; there was short skip, and even more unusual, I found my microphone beneath a bunch of stuff in a drawer. I got the SOTA COMPLETE, the only opportunity for it so far, and Doc worked him also such that he has worked both of the HF activations of this peak. Great series of photos from a hiker, here: https://stevensong.com/usa/new-mexico/organ-needle/ This peak is a fun challenge. You hike from about 5,500 ft to 9,000 ft and look down on Las Cruces more than 6,000 ft below! I see that in 2022 someone installed a rope ladder for the previously free climb, I guess it could be ignored, hi hi. 73, fred kt5x

On now (2107z) a peak in CA on 14.0665 fd

(nothing to do with SOTA) Worked this station yesterday evening on 17M. It is now QRT. Sigs were S-7, and was able to make contact QRP when no others calling. This is an ice runway used by commercial tourist jets operated by a British tour company. Have no idea what tourists do there after landing. Doesn’t seem to even be a smoking lounge ? Vy cool website: https://white-desert.com/about-us/wolfsfang-runway-logistics/ fred kt5x

Today John and I ascended Glorieta Mesa. Of interest to others, at this time there is essentially no snow there at 8,000 ft elev. Condx were fine, EU was worked by one of us on each of the higher bands. I have been using an endfed HALFwave wire since 2012. My reasons include that it does not require a radial on the ground as does a random wire which is lossy, and that I can use the last several feet of the wire as a feedline, no coax. Coax adds weight, loss, and several connectors which in frequent use can fail. Matching a halfwave at the end is challenging. There must be a very high transformation. In 2012 I found the web pages of AA5TB where he explained how he was dealing with an endfed halfwave. I copied his circuit exactly, but used smaller components since I am running QRP. After a few tries, I was able to make this so small that it fits in a dental floss case. I even made one with a built-in SWR indicator, the “tinySWR” by Martin Hepp, DK3IT. Today, I believe, for the first time, … AA5TB chased me on a SOTA peak !!! I emailed him to thank him for both the posting of his EFHW tuning experiments 20 years ago which inspired my miniaturized version of his conclusions, and the chase. 73, fred kt5x

Cerro Rendija W5N/CO-013 was a real joy of an activation, easy hike with great views just bring something to sit on as there are no comfortable rocks on this one! If you are up to a bit more hiking this is an impressive side trip just a mile or so further down the road. “Caterpillar Collapse” a giant collapsed lava tube. Beautiful winter hiking, hope you can get out on a hill soon. Dale, AA7OY

February 1, 2025 W5N/CO-004 Mount Powell Depart my QTH by 0800 local. I have been tracking the weather out by Thoreau and it looks good. Roads up to the summit should in excellent shape. SUBARU capable. Temps in the high 40's under partly cloudy skies and winds in the 16 mph range. We will park at the com site and walk down the ridge to get away from any noise. Normally if you drive the speed limit it takes about 2hrs and 10 min to make the trip, but if Don takes Squirrel One then we may have to add a few min to the travel time. QRV around 1800 UTC. 73 all WB5USB Geo.. see previous pics for fun

On a sota peak last week when he and Josh worked John and I on Tetilla… fd Here is DJ on the summit with Mt. Rainier in the background (spotting and awesome lenticular cloud) -Josh

Don and I decided to try out Don's Land Rover so we went up to the Crest. W5N/SI-001. Departing my QTH around 10 thirty we took the scenic drive up. Roads were in good shape, dry, no snow. Expecting it to be cold we over dressed. Turned out with sunshine and light winds we were quite toasty. Set up ops just south of the summit along the ridge. Had trouble with cell service until I stared down La Luz trail to shield my cell phone from the towers. Spotted Don on 18 MHz and 20 min later Don had 16 contacts or so. One from France and one from Spain. We chose 18 megs due to its lower noise level and it really paid off. Land Rover seems to be working well. 73 all enjoy the pics WB5USB Geo...