ZL1/BP-132 Putauaki/Mt Edgecumbe January 2022

 Our annual trip to the Eastern Bay of Plenty to visit Francie's Dad saw me plotting another BoP summit. We usually get out fishing in the bay and I have often looked longingly at Putauaki as it is so distinctive. A quick Google and email to the Kawerau District Council i-Site led me to Maori Investments Limited who couldn't have been more helpful. Only requirement was a minimum of three in the party so a quick email to Warren ZL2AJ and that problem was solved! Warren ZL2JML, Ada ZL2ADA and Stephen ZL1HFT were lined up to join us, the permit was obtained and we were on! Finer details worked out via Messenger the week before and we all met at the Kawerau i-Site at 7:45am, climbed into Warren's Land Rover and off we went. The aim being to be on the summit before the heat of the day. Warren ZL2AJ has an impressive array of radios in his wagon - I don't think Ada was impressed when Warren ZL2JML admired the setup ;-)

We parked at the designated McKee road entry point for the South East track, AKA the "4WD track" (the NW track AKA the "Goat Track" is only open for the annual mountain race so sadly, a circuit was not on for us) and set off just after 8am. It's a fairly easy climb, just 600m of vertical gain over a 3.3km 4WD track and we made good time, arriving at the summit in 1 hour 20 minutes. Pleasing to see a lot of pest traps evident on the way, one of which had dispatched a very large wild cat. The trapping effectiveness was obvious with lots of native birdsong accompanying us up the mountain.

First glimpse of the summit - lots of towers...

With 5 operators, it could have been a challenge to get everyone set up but there was no drama. The VHF gear (Stephen ZL1HFT) obviously had to go on the trig and it was also the best spot to set up the dipoles for the two HF SSB stations. I headed back down off the summit to a disused concrete pad and set up my 40/30/20m trapped EFHW and MTR3B. There were 4 large towers with various comms and data links around us but the only interference we suffered was from the paging transmitters on 2m (oh, and some character on 20m CW interfering with the SSB stations... ;-)

The CW site and op(in orange) viewed from the trig site. Fire Watchtower in background

The 2m and HF SSB site set up under the trig.
L-R Stephen ZL1HFT, Ada ZL2ADA, Warren ZL2AJ , Warren ZL2JML

We were soon in business and I got called up the to summit to work Soren S2S on Pirongia on 2m and to my great surprise, Nick ZL1IU in the Bay of Islands, some 408km away! Great signals and checking with Nick later, tropospheric ducting was the likely mode. A doubling of my 2m distance record! Thanks Stephen ZL1HFT for doing the hard yards, hauling a TM-241A, halfwave antenna and a big battery up to the summit! I also had a local 70cm contact and a few nice S2S with the other ZL and VK activators - thanks all!

2m antenna g-clamped to the trig

We hit the mid-day propagation doldrums and it was getting quite hot so we decided to pack up and head down - looking forward to the shade of the bush once off the summit. A very pleasant descent and back to Warren's wagon - he soon whisked us back to Kawerau where we had a quick debrief, bid each other farewell and went our separate ways. It was a really nice activation, a good chance to chat with ops I normally only get to exchange signal reports with and get a new unique summit to boot.

This is a great summit to activate, I recommend it to all and will definitely do it again. Thanks to my co-activators, it was an enjoyable day.

Access: Contact Maori Investments Limited for a permit ($10), it's easy and quick: https://permits.maoriinvestments.co.nz/ They will issue the permit with a map and conditions of entry.

Time: They say to allow 2.5 hours, we did it in 1.5 hours - 600m of climbing over 3.3km of good 4WD track

2m coverage to Auckland, Waikato, BoP and Hawke's Bay (and Bay of Islands if you are lucky!). Plenty of space within the AZ to set up antennas.

Route from the forestry road - McKee Road

 

ZL3/CB-437 January 2022

This is an un-named, private summit which Dave ZL3DRN arranged access to and invited me along.

There is no track, route-finding required. A fairly simple bush-bash for a bit, a grunt up the spur to the ridge and a stroll around the tops, what could possibly go wrong?!

The day dawned cool with a forecast wind change and heat in the afternoon so we were up there at 7:30am to get the steep work done before the heat of the day. Parking the car at Craigieburn Cutting, we walked across the road and headed up through the beech forest - some animal trails evident and eventually we popped out on to a plateau of felled firs, many fire damaged. Picking our way through them took a while, it was pretty tough going as we couldn't find a clear path.

Arriving at the farm track, we picked the right hand side of the large gut and started up (middle of photo above). Steep and cluttered with debris, it was slow going and then we hit the shale/scree and hard clay... 

Yes, it really is that steep...

Eventually we arrived at the top of the spur and the first of three summits we would pass on the way to the SOTA peak at Pt 1578m. This one had a beaten up metal trig and a very old wooden one about 20m further on. The original surveyor must have been a bit out with his calculations!

From this point on it was ridge walking, great views and relatively easy. Lots of chamois sign and before too long we were rewarded with seeing a dozen of them just upwind of us. There's been no tourist hunting here for the past couple of years I guess so numbers are high. (As we arrived at the summit we disturbed a group of three does and their kids who then kindly posed so Dave could get a photo)

After passing the named summit, Broken Hill at 1486m, we were on the final climb up to our SOTA peak when an orange object appeared in front of us, a Stihl chainsaw left behind by one of the wilding pine contractors! We marked it's position on the GPS so we could find it on the return leg.

Not what you expect to find at 1420m!

After the hard slog, animal watching and chainsaw pondering, we arrived right on our alert time of 2200z/11am (3 hours 13 elapsed time, 2 hours 35 min moving time) and set about setting up the gear. I had made a poor HF antenna selection (doublet) given that we wanted to use the 2m vertical dipole (Flower Pot), of course the open wire feeders detuned the 2m antenna and our local chasers were stronger on the Handheld 1/4 whip! No harm done and we worked S2S with John ZL3MR when he arrived at Mt Hutt. HF went OK with our loyal ZL and VK Chasers and JA5QJX/0 worked. S2S with Ian ZL3GIG (Trig M), Warren ZL2AJ (Maungatautari) and Simon ZL1THH (ZL1/WK-192 ).

Spot the obvious issue...

The forecast wind change arrived so we pulled down the HF antenna and put the pole back up to confirm my theory about the detuning of 2m. Had lunch and then worked the locals after rollover on 2m - booming in!! A quick pack-up and we set off.

Arriving back at the chainsaw, we decided not to carry it down (due to the steep final descent down the spur) and that we would simply send the owner the waypoint location. Dave couldn't resist starting it (5 pulls) and we made a short video for Chris ZL4RA's benefit, showing how WE deal with wilding pine in CB! 

The descent down the spur was uneventful - Dave found us some scree to use and it was much faster than when we climbed it! From our vantage point, we picked out the path through the felled firs and headed for that - much easier going this time and we were soon back into the beech forest. Dave had warned me about the wasps before we set out... About 3/4 of the way down, I hear all this swearing behind me (not his usual trait), I turn around and here's Dave surrounded by angry wasps... I had stood on the nest and they came out angry and attacked him behind me...We hustled down the last bit and he hit the welcome stream at the bottom and got rid of the last of them. Back across the road to the car and a couple of  anti-histamine tablets into him.

The obligatory stop was made at the Yello Shack in Springfield where the owner now recognises us and off home. A great day with the only downside being the wasp attack. Another summit I probably won't return to but one I am glad we did.

Access details - Private summit, please check with Dave ZL3DRN

Time: 3 1/4 hours to the top (2 hours 35 moving time)

Cell: Vodafone good, Spark/Skinny patchy

Repeaters: not tried but good 2m coverage to Christchurch

Mt Horrible ZL3/CB-545 January 2022

 I'd selected this summit for my New Years day activation and gave up after the first 100m (vertical) Straight up from the SH73 (50% grade) and plenty of chest high regenerating scrub to bash through. 

A week later Dave ZL3DRN was back from holiday and keen to get out - let's plan a better route up Mt Horrible and get it done! Plotting my previous attempt on topomap and Google Earth showed that I had taken the wrong option when faced with the wall of scrub. Turning around was the right option. New route planned and loaded to the GPS and we were off. 

Arriving at the layby at 8:30am, Dave looked up and commented "are you sure this is the best access?!" We set off and using the new route, picked and bashed our way up. The first 300m of climbing is very steep and punctuated by walls of pig fern, vicious wild rose hip and matagouri. Several sections required some rock climbing on crumbly, flakey rock - more on this later...

View looking straight up from the carpark...

Once we emerged from the scrub, we picked up an old track which went all the way to the summit, along the very route we had planned. It was good travelling, up the spur and along the ridge to the summit. There used to be a track to the summit from just West of Paddy's Bend (but not since the big fires). 

We arrived at the summit 2 hours after leaving the car. 

The views are magnificent in all directions, so here's the obligatory panorama!

Antenna (EFHW), pole and 2m antenna with the Hawdon River and ZL3/CB-471 Woolshed Hill in the background

We were early but keen to get set up to ensure we got Mark ZL3AB on Mt Southey. I was trying a new 5/8 wave portable roll-up antenna for 2m, the Flower Pot designed by VK2ZOI. The choke slips over the telescoping mast and the top sits up at about 5m. We worked Ross ZL3RJ in Rangiora and Rick ZL3RIK in Hornby with good signals. On to HF and used the 60m EFHW to work the CHC Chasers who couldn't hear us on 2m including John ZL3MR on ZL3/CB-822 Mt Pleasant. 60m proves it's worth again. Taking out the 60m coil, 40m was in good shape and we worked S2S with Warren ZL2JML and Ada ZL2ADA on ZL1/WK-024, Don ZL3DMC on ZL3/CB-760 Pearce, Richard ZL4FZ on ZL3/SL-307 Bluff Hill and Mark ZL3AB on ZL3/CB-383 Mt Southey, a very pleasing haul of S2S points! We worked our way up the bands and our usual loyal ZL and VK Chasers and JH1MXV (on 15m). Nothing worked on 10m this time.

We had decided we would follow the track back down past where we joined it to see if we could find a better starting point and so packed up HF at 12.30pm and had lunch, worked Don and Rick again on 2m after rollover and headed straight back down the hill.

The descent plan was looking good for a while but then the track petered out as we got to the area that had been burnt and regenerated with very thick fern walls and no clear way down. The decision was made to turn around and go back down the way we had ascended. Unfortunately this meant re-climbing another 200m vertical... We were following the backtrack of our ascent but it was still tough to find a way through. Dave took the fast way at one stage - unintentionally. A victim of the crumbly rock and wild rose hip, he managed to flip over and arrest his slide after about 6m, it was scary to watch...

We got back to the car about 4pm, tired but exhilarated after activating a new one!

Be careful if you attempt this summit, the summit itself is very pleasant with great views. It's very dangerous coming down the last 100 vertical metres, if you do decide to tackle it, please take someone else with you.

Directions: Drive on SH73 to just West of Paddy's bend, there is a layby (-43.027741 171.688414). Park there and head straight up!

Time: 2 hours, 3.5km and 689m vertical with some scrub-bashing

Repeaters: 705 accessible. 2m Simplex OK to certain CHC areas

Cell: Spark and Vodafone 4G thanks to the celltower near the Mt White bridge. Skinny not good

Permission: Not required, Mt Horrible Conservation Area

Big Ben Range ZL3/CB-857 6th November 2021

 This is an un-named summit in the Korowai/Torlesse Tussocklands Park. It's the peak NE of Ben More and 5m higher, hence why we were headed there! We had a false start a few weeks ago when a dump of rain on the Friday meant that it was too icy to attempt. No problems this time and, with an improving forecast, we headed up to Lake Lyndon for a nice early start. DOC has closed vehicle access to the area so it was a case of parking on the Lyndon road 1km past the Lyndon Lodge turnoff (near the "Z" bend).

Dave ZL3DRN did the first activation of this summit so we used his GPX route up a very steep (51% grade) initial climb to attain the ridge. After that it's  a much easier route up the ridge to the summit. All the while looking south at the route he had planned for our descent - more on that later...

We made good time up to the summit - my climbing fitness is certainly improving, arriving about 1.5 hours before our alerted time... Regular readers will notice a pattern here. As forecast, the Canterbury Plains were blanketed in thick cloud but we had spectacular views of the mountains around us.

Christchurch is out there somewhere! Nice up here at 1660m ASL though.

We used the Repeater hut as shelter from the very light breeze and set up the gear - antenna du jour is the 40m EFHW with switchable 60m loading coil designed by Stephan HB9EAJ. I really like this antenna for it's ease of setup, End Fed convenience and it's fairly light weight. Oh, and it's resonant on 7 bands!

Dave in action with the KX2. 6m pole in the background, EFHW matching unit bungeed to my pack

John ZL3MR was on Mt Barrosa ZL3/CB-499 and had also arrived early. Even though Mt Hutt was directly in the way, we managed 2m S2S contacts with him. The Christchurch gang were quickly worked on 2m also and then we hit the HF bands. We weren't expecting much given the Geomagnetic storm but it worked out OK with nice S2S contacts with Andrew VK1AD/2 and Matt ZL3NVW. Also worked were VK1MA, VK1MCW, VK5PAS, VK5IS and JA5QJX/0 plus our loyal ZLs on 40m and 60m.

Our summit peace and quiet had been invaded by a large, noisy tramping club group so we packed up and headed across the saddle to Ben More for lunch. (Unfortunately so did the other group!). It's a nice summit too with the remains of a trig and great views.

Dave in his happy place. Lunch at Ben More with the ridge we ascended in the foreground.                   L to R ZL3/CB-570, Mt Lyndon CB-460 and Trig M CB-536 behind with just a glimpse of the SE end of Lake Lyndon

The rest of the route home was great, walking along the tops with spectacular views either side, what's not to like?!

Route home is via the long ridge to the left of shot. The ridge we ascended is the scrubby one on the right. Lake Coleridge in the background with Peak Hill CB-542 in the background.

Google Earth view of our route. Lake Lyndon in the background.

Apart from a fairly steep scramble down the last spur (36%) and a real bash/crawl through some Matagouri (in flower so at least it smelled nice!) after crossing the Acheron River, we made good time down and back to the vehicle. A quick stop at Lake Lyndon for a fish (unrewarded) on the way out and we were off home after another epic day. Thanks Dave for pushing me to extend my limits.

Summary:

15.8 km walked

1307 vertical metres

4 Hours 51 min walking time

Getting there: Head over Porters Pass on State highway 73 before turning left at Lake Lyndon and driving about 5 kilometres. Just before the road turns hard right (Z corner) right there is an area you can park. Note that vehicle access is not permitted into the park itself now. 

Permission: None needed - Korowai/Torlesse Tussocklands Park

Trig: None, repeater station on the summit

Cell Coverage: None until at the summit. Spark better than Vodafone but still very patchy.

Repeaters: 705 and 2m simplex to Christchurch is easy - direct line of sight.

Time to the top: Allow 3 to 3.5 hours up. It is a 6.3km walk up with 941m of climbing.

Update: Thanks to Dave for the photo of me in the Matagouri, it was pretty tough going!

Mt Somers ZL3/CB-387 October 2021

This is a mountain I have had my eye on for a while - quite literally. We have enjoyed holidays at the Mt Somers Domain camping ground over recent years and looked up at this spectacular 1688m peak.

View from the Mt Somers Domain camp

 Feeling that I was now fit enough to tackle it and with a good forecast, we booked in to stay for Labour weekend. Dave ZL3DRN and Julie decided to join us and give their caravan a pre-summer shakedown too.

Saturday morning dawned fine and frosty so we set off around 7am for the Sharplin Falls Reserve end of the track near Staveley. The plan being to complete a traverse of the mountain and come down the other side to the Woolshed Creek carpark. A longer exit but gentler on the knees and an opportunity to see more of the mountain.

17 cars in the carpark upon arrival is not usually a good sign but, as it turned out, only 3 parties (5 people) were headed to the summit.

It's a climb that never really lets up, over Hookey Knob to the summit track junction and then a steep climb up a spur to the ridge and along to the summit. Half a protein bar at the junction and the other half at the 1400m point saw me right to push on to the summit. Plenty of snow along the ridge but the summit was reasonably clear. 

An incredible sense of achievement - my highest summit to date. 

It's a very exposed and harsh environment up here!

Amazing view to the West, Mt Cook ZL3/CB-001 just left of center 

The obligatory panorama!

OK, enough sightseeing, we have a SOTA activation to do! A leisurely setup (as usual, we were early) saw us use the summit structure to support the pole with the 66 foot Doublet atop. The other three summiteers were having their lunch near the trig having already signed the summit book so we weren't in their way.

Dave ZL3DRN operating HF. Summit book is in the "letterbox"

We got the HF gear set up and worked the Christchurch gang on 2m FM with big signals. A nice surprise was a S2S with Ian ZL3GIG on Coopers Knob ZL3/CB-806. We were amazed when he said it was cold and windy there - we had 18 degrees, a light NW breeze and sun!

On to HF and we worked our way up the bands, starting on 60m as usual. Because we were in Hakatere Conservation Park ZLFF-0026, the Australian WWFF gang were keen to chase us resulting in some unfamiliar calls in the log on 20m including a Park to Park with VK2TER/P in VKFF-1331 Jilliby State Conservation Area.

New item for the pack - Cramp Stop!! I had a massive cramp of both legs while sitting on the ground operating - thankfully the electrolyte sachet in my drink bottle had some Magnesium in it. A quick swig and it started to ease. We then changed the operating position to the top of the wooden rail!

The bands were a bit flaky so we packed up HF, had lunch, worked the locals on 2m after UTC rollover and set off on the next part of the adventure - navigating ourselves down off the mountain to the pickup area. There's no track down this way but Dave had prepared a route on the GPS. We shortly discovered a series of cairns along our planned route, great minds think alike! After an uneventful descent, we intercepted the Woolshed Creek Hut Track as planned and headed down to the carpark via the Rhyolite Track, arriving at 4:30pm. 

A big day with 1353m of vertical gain, 14.2km travelled with 5 hours moving time.

ZL3/CB-387 Mount Somers
Height: 1688m ASL
Directions: From Staveley, follow the signs to Sharplin Falls Reserve. Follow the marked track (South Face) to the Summit Junction, turn right and it's a poled route to the top.
Time to summit: 5 hours (DOC). We took 3 hours 20 min (1288m ascent, 5.9km, Average grade 21%)
Summit marker: Trig
Land access permission: Not required, Hakatere Conservation Park
Repeater access: Good into Christchurch area repeaters
Cellphone access: Patchy Vodafone and Skinny 4G/Txt from the summit

Mt Thomas double - ZL3/CB-617 and ZL3/CB-599

 The final week of winter bonus 2021 was looking pretty good weather-wise so Dave ZL3DRN and I both took a weeks leave to make up for time lost in lockdown. We warmed up the legs with a snowy activation of Duvauchelle Peak ZL3/ CB-759 on Monday. Tuesday was looking much better so we attacked a double that I have been eyeing up for some time, two summits on the Mt Thomas forest conservation area Bob's Bivvy track, CB-617 and CB-599

It looked like a series of 4 x 2 hour hikes so do-able in a day but we'd have to start early and keep to schedule.

The day dawned crisp and fine and we arrived at the start point - Wooded Gully camping area at 7.30am and were on our way by 7:40am. 3 degrees Celsius on the Garmin. The sector to CB-617 starts off with a walk along the forestry roads then a gut-busting section through the plantation forest with a gradient of 30% for 270 vertical metres... After that it is a very nice track through Beech forest. Lots of windfall trees to negotiate after the recent Nor West storms - some snapped clean in half! We arrived at CB-617 in good time at 9:27 - half an hour before we had alerted. Thanks to our loyal VHF Chasers, we had 4 contacts each in the log, refueled with a snack and were moving again by 9:43. So far so good.

Beginning the descent off CB-617 to the saddle. CB-599 is in the background just to the left of the pinnacle

The drop into the saddle was pretty steep, two stretches of 25% grade - neither of us were looking forward to climbing back up this on the way home!

The well marked track crosses the saddle and then climbs steadily up through bush to Pt 953 where there is a junction

The Bobs Bivvy route is well marked and after another saddle you climb steadily again to the bivvy turnoff, staying on the main track and arrived at ZL3/CB-599 at 11:30, 30 minutes prior to our alert. A very nice summit with some scrubby trees (rare in CB!), a nice sized activation zone and a very sad looking trig

Hams can multi-task! 2m FM in right hand and CW paddle in the left!

We set up on HF and VHF and worked the local Chasers on 2m FM. HF was flat on all bands tried. Only HF contacts to be had were ZL1BQD and ZL1BYZ worked on 60m (plus Bill ZL3NB groundwave on 20m and 17m!). No RBN spots, propagation clearly not good. Had a very pleasant lunch break perched on the trig remnants and were on the trail back at 12:50 (no rollover - we needed to get back to CB-617 to do HF there).

We made pretty good time back to CB-617 despite pacing ourselves carefully - thanks to Dave I am finally learning not to go out like a startled rabbit! The climb back up to the summit was very slow and careful but we made it at 2:26pm. HF and VHF quickly up and running, the bands were in much better shape and we worked several VKs - Dave got a S2S with VK3BCM and I worked Gerard VK2IO for a VKFF to ZLFF park to park.

Bodies were starting to tire so we packed up at 3pm and headed slowly back down to the start point, marveling at how well it had all gone and how far your feet can take you!

Thanks to all the Chasers, some were keeping an eye on us on APRS and were there waiting when we needed them - much appreciated!

Statistics:

Vertical metres gained: 1483 m

Distance travelled: 21.2 km

7 hours hiking

Here's the Google Earth view of the day (thanks Dave for the images)

 

ZL3/CB-527 Dumblane July 2021

 A weekend in Hanmer with Mark ZL3AB and Adele provided the chance to do a joint activation with Mark. When planning the trip we realised that although we started on this SOTA obsession on the same day, 3 years and >200 activations later we hadn't yet operated together on a mountain! Time to fix that!

Saturday dawned fine and frosty - very frosty! We started from the Jacks Pass saddle at -1 Deg C with a stiff breeze - lots of layers needed! A nice track, marked with waratahs but not shown on any maps :-) It was telling that as we sat on the summit, we could see 11 other cars in the carpark, all up Mt Isobel... We only saw two other humans the whole day, just how we like it.

Panorama from a really great summit

Mark has written an excellent Blog on his first activation of this summit - linked off the SOTA Mapping Project page.

He also created a video of our activation, you can watch it here (Youtube).

We made good time to the top and set up my newly built 7 Band EFHW (60/40/30/20/17/15/10) It worked very well and provided over 50 QSOs in the couple of hours we were up there. The KX2 tuner also pulled it in on 12m.

Mark operating in his orange beanie. Hanmer Plain and Waiau River in the background

The weather was great so we stayed for the UTC rollover and worked John ZL3MR on his second summit then headed down to have a beer, watch the Olympic Cycling and reflect on a great day.

View back towards the Southern alps

Getting there: Drive up Clarence Valley Road to the Jacks Pass summit carparking area. Look for the track start on the Western side of the area. It's marked with Waratahs but there is no signage :-) I have uploaded a GPX track to the SOTA Tracks site. Keep right, at the Chatterton River tracks sign, i.e. don't veer left down to the river. Here's a Google Earth view of our track:

Time: it took us an hour to ascend. There are two steep-ish bits but it's a nice walk.

Repeaters: Didn't try any but 705 should be fine - we worked 2m Simplex to Christchurch and 70cm S2S to the Banks Peninsula.