K7MK

K7MK and I continue to get our SOTA Activator legs under us. We are going to attempt a Idaho Triple Play on Friday afternoon the 31st. Look for us on the following summits starting around 2:00PM MDT/20:00 UTC.

K7MK and I headed out late in the morning on July 24 to accomplish a double -- Boise Peak - W7I/BC-079 and this summit 6624 - W7I/BC-077. We were thwarted on our access to Boise Peak by an impassible section of road. See a separate activation report on Boise Peak for that story. This wasted well over an hour of time as we drove up the road to Boise Peak and then came back down again. If there was one silver lining is this cloud is that during the round trip we noticed that K7MK's APRS system was not working.

(NOTE: This report covers both Shafer Butte W7I/BC-064 and W7I/BC-070. It is posted twice so that it can link to both summit references on pnwSOTA and SOTAWatch.)

(NOTE: This report covers both Shafer Butte W7I/BC-064 and W7I/BC-070. It is posted twice so that it can link to both summit references on pnwSOTA and SOTAWatch.)

With a clear weather window during a wet week, my wife and I decided we should go hike/run up Lucky Peak.  The trail head is only a couple miles from our house so we spend quite a bit of time on the first few miles of the trail.  This would be our second time hiking all the way to the top.  It would be the first time hiking/running the peak with the SOTA gear on my back though!

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Stack Rock has become more accessible over the last few years due to private land being converted to public access.  A private donation made it possible for the Land Trust of the Treasure Valley to purchase private land around and on the way to Stack Rock.  More information here at this LINK.  The trail is widely used by hikers, mountain bikers and is now used by those that have drank the SOTA Kool-Aid!

Attempt #1:

The rough road up to Kepros Mountain is only open during the fall hunting season.  I had concidered attempting this peak with a friend who has one of those cool RZR 4x4's.  However, that trip early last winter was called on account of bad weather.  So I waited until Spring to make the first real attempt.

K7MK and I headed out on a somewhat blustery spring day for our second ever activation. With snow still on higher peaks and Forest Service roads not opening up until April 30th we headed to this nearby 1 pointer. Per Google Earth and other satellite imagery we knew there was a private home on the actual summit. But, it had been activated once before and the terrain looked like we should be able to find a spot in the activation zone somewhere to setup. Actually getting to this summit is a bit of a navigation challenge.

K7MK and I headed out to activate this summit as our first ever activation. K7MK has been assembling a SOTA capable station for the last 6 months or so. We have done a dry run or two in his back yard and even hauled it up to a non-SOTA summit back in February on a rare warm winter weekend afternoon. But, this was our first real activation.