Mt Terako ZL3/MB-083

 Also known as Mount Lyford skifield, this is a private summit right on the Marlborough/Canterbury border. It's run as a multi-facet business and very well too, it seems. Payment of the $40 per head access fee is done on line and you get the code to unlock the gate just beyond the Mt Lyford Village.

The road is good but not for the faint-of-heart! Rick was activating Lake Stella and Snowdon Scenic Reserve so we followed him up to make sure his 2WD Mitsi was ok. I had trouble keeping up! Lake Stella is a great location with several lodges and a well appointed amenities hut. The only downside is all the solar inverter hash on 20m... 

Leaving Rick to get set up, we carried on to the skifield base. This part of the road (4WD) has a lot of sharp rocks - be careful if on road or even R/T tyres. After checking a couple of options, we found a track that led to our spur, parked up and headed up. It's not far but it IS steep and is all scree to the top. 

Hey, who's that white headed old fella?! Must be the morning sunlight...

40 minutes and we were on a very pleasant summit with amazing views from Kaikoura and Mt Fyffe right down the Hundalees and Conway to the Port Hills.

An unexpected but very apt can found stashed in the summit cairn!

Setting up the gear we found that 20m was very noisy - almost certainly due to all the solar inverters down below. 2m and 70cm back to Christchurch were both easy with big signals - didn't need the 2m dipole!

6m telescoping pole with EFHW apex and 2m vertical dipole. Port Hills on the horizon

Meanwhile Dave was working up and down the country on 40m including Matt ZL4NVW on an Otago summit. We also worked Warren ZL2JML and Ada ZL2ADA on a Manawatu summit. 

Dave working 40m. EFHW feed-point on walking poles behind him.

I jumped on to the CW end of the bands and worked Japan on 20m, 15m and 10m and plenty of strong USA and Australian stations on 10m.

Weather was nice so we worked the UTC rollover at noon then headed down to have lunch with Rick. The descent down the scree was much quicker (and more fun) than the climb!

Rick was in good form when we got there with a very slick setup. 

Rick's setup - drive-on stand supporting the pole and linked dipole. Big 2m colinear on the car!

We had a very nice lunch and then headed off to get to Culverden for coffee before they closed. A very pleasant day indeed!

Private summit - access pass is required ($40 per person but worth every bit of it). 

https://www.mtlyfordadventurepark.com/

This would make a great base for a SOTA expedition!

https://www.lakestella.co.nz/

Climb: 380m approx 40 minutes up a scree spur

2m: amazing