ACØPR, ham radio blog: 1st Activation of Red Hills South W7U/IR-046

At the summit!

I had once scouted this never-before-activated summit out, but it looked way to rocky from the northwest approach I was at. This summit can be seen from I-15, though most notice the radio antennas (which is not the high point of this small range). Later I noticed on Google Earth that there was a trail that led from the radio antennas the next "hill" over, so if I could reach that, I could just follow the trail over.

Trail report:

The rockiness I mentioned

This summit is in the Red Hills near Summit, Parowan, and Enoch, Utah. You can easily see a radio tower from I-15 as you get near, although that is NOT the summit or high point. There is a road that goes to the tower and an ATV trail that goes from there to the summit, however, that whole eastern side of the range is private land. I'm sure there's access from somewhere, but I could not find it and ran into lots of gated roads. Google Maps will show you a number of options; all the ones I checked were gated. Maybe farther north? Instead of spending more time trying to find it, I chose my backup option.

Thus I opted to go around and hike up from the western side of the summit (which I was already considering). Personally, I took Gap Road and then the ATV trails that lead to the base of the hill.

The hike is rocky and there are large layers of rock but they can be fairly easily navigated with a bit of planning. The summit is covered with trees, so not great views. The ATV trail goes right on the top, the only thing marking the high point it is some old wire (typical of the area). There are trees to set up and cell service.

The experience:

Getting close, but any farther and there's no more views, the
high point above my hat has the radio antennas

It certainly was frustrating not being able to go the planned route, but I was balancing time spent finding the "easy" way and using that time to hike the rougher way before it got too hot. In the end I'm glad I went the rocky, longer hike route--it's just a better SOTA experience. From the base I could see where they were going to be some challenges because of large rock layers, but I couldn't totally plan from the bottom because there were too many trees to see a full route clearly.

Even though it was a harder and rougher way to go, it still wasn't bad or long. It's always exciting to be in a new area and new summit--even more so when it's the summits first activation. I found my way up to the higher ridge and could see my route to the end, even though I still couldn't see the very top clearly, and it was a bit rounded and covered with trees so I wouldn't be sure until I was actually there.

As I stepped out from the trees to the opening at the very top, I saw the not much used ATV trail go right over the top and a very large dead tree sitting dead center on top (which I used to secure my mast). I set up, put up my flag--which I have the practice of only doing when it's a first activation--and got on the air. 20 meters had LOTS of activity and it was really fun. 23 contacts in 16 mins., that's a pretty steady pace of contacts. The highlight was getting OK2PDT, Jan, in the Czech Republic for the longest contact of the day. On 40 meters, my last contact was a summit-to-summit with WSØTA in New Mexico. Great day, great way to start of this summit! Although there was good activity, I didn't stay too long as it was getting hot, so I carefully went back down and headed home.

Date:26/05/2020 | Summit:W7U/IR-046 (Red Hills South) | Call Used:AC0PR | Points: 4 | Bonus: 0

Time	Callsign	Band	Mode	Notes
16:26	WW7D	14MHz	CW
16:27	KJ9X	14MHz	CW
16:27	W9MRH	14MHz	CW
16:28	W0MNA	14MHz	CW
16:29	N9KW	14MHz	CW
16:29	W0ERI	14MHz	CW
16:30	AD0YM	14MHz	CW
16:31	WA2USA	14MHz	CW
16:31	W5BOS	14MHz	CW
16:32	K7GT	14MHz	CW
16:32	NS7P	14MHz	CW
16:33	K0LAF	14MHz	CW
16:33	KF9D	14MHz	CW
16:34	AC7P	14MHz	CW
16:34	KB0VXN	14MHz	CW
16:36	N6WT	14MHz	CW
16:36	AC1Z	14MHz	CW
16:37	K3TCU	14MHz	CW
16:39	N4MJ	14MHz	CW
16:39	OK2PDT	14MHz	CW
16:41	WU7H	14MHz	CW
16:41	K9OZ	14MHz	CW
16:42	K4MF	14MHz	CW
16:48	W7RV	7MHz	CW
16:49	KE6MT	7MHz	CW
16:49	WD7Y	7MHz	CW
16:50	KR7RK	7MHz	CW
16:51	NG6R	7MHz	CW
16:51	K6QCB	7MHz	CW
16:52	K6YK	7MHz	CW
17:00	K6HPX	7MHz	CW
17:01	K7TP	7MHz	CW
17:01	NJ7V	7MHz	CW
17:04	WS0TA	7MHz	CW	S2S W5N/SE-011