A four (4) point SOTA Summit, close in to Seattle Metro area. This makes a great first Activation objective. A quick return trip outing, just before the weather turned bad. We still ended the Activation early, as it started raining. Accompanied by my wife Sharon and our Labrador Retriever Dexter the SOTA Dog.
Rattlesnake Mountain is a relatively easy 9.0 miles round trip (including preliminary walk to trail head from parking lot), gaining 2,500 feet +/- to a summit elevation of 3,517. TH is is easily accessible from my home QTH in Bellevue, WA. I-90 east to exit 32 in North Bend, then good but windy paved road to Rattlesnake Lake area. The hike is through mostly wooded terrain, with some sections of old growth trees. This trip was on a Friday morning, and the usually very busy trail was not quite as mobbed as it is on weekend days. I recommend it be done during the week for a little more solitude.
Trail has been cleared and is in good shape. Two and one half (2 1/3 ) hours up and less than two (2) hours down. This was a little faster than we did the previous Activation a little more than a year before. A good map is available from King Country Parks at: http://your.kingcounty.gov/ftp/gis/web/vmc/recreation/BCT_RattlesnakeMtn_brochure.pdf
Setting up quickly, as we could see the approaching rain squalls, I only managed 5 verifyable contacts (those that I can cross check on QRZ.com) before the rain showers became more persistant, and we decided to break the equipment down, and head out. The temperature was a slightly chilly 56 degrees. On the upper part of the mountain, we only saw two other couples, one of them visiting hikers from Belgium, with which we struck up a warm conversation, when they inquired about the radio equipment and atenna.
Thank you very much to the "Chasers" and stations that I worked: KV7L; KB6KAX (on 40M ssb); K7ZAC; W7JKC (on 2M fm) and KZ7ZZ (on 20M ssb)
