HIGH ADVENTURE: PIKE’S PEAK QRP / PM, OR BUST!

If you planned a big DX operation and the weather or conditions shut you down, you would say the operation was a Bust.
What does that word mean? It means broken, a failure, inoperative, a flop, out of money, or Busted (like when your XYL finds out you paid $500 for a little bag of parts).

This QRP operation was at Bust – the Bust from the 1859 gold rush, Pike's Peak or Bust!

Here is a little history . . .

In 1859, gold was discovered to the north and northwest of Pikes Peak, leading to the gold rush and the rallying cry of "Pikes Peak or Bust" which was painted on the Gold Rush canvas wagon tops, and it was leading the gold seekers to the wrong place.

The first gold rushers to the Pike's Peak area discovered that there was no gold to be found within 100 miles of the peak.
Later, as the frontier towns swelled with gold rushers, there was an opposite wave of disillusioned gold seekers passing back through the towns on their way home. Their wagons now had the Pike's Peak slogan crossed out and under it was hastily scrawled: "Busted by Clod."

It was 1891 when gold was discovered in the Cripple Creek area that is about 10 miles southeast of Pike's Peak. Overnight the area became known as the Bowl of Gold and produced nearly a half billion dollars worth of gold before the rich veins played out.

It's easy to make contacts from the top of Pike's Peak. It is a great QRP location. It is 14,115 feet high (it has gotten 5 feet taller after they installed the GPS satellite system) and it has a clear view in all directions. It is always about 40F degrees colder up there than it is in the city and can be very windy, too. The road to the top is still closed by snow and there is still too much snow to hike.

This QRP operation was to be from a less well known place at the bottom of the hill called "Bust," Colorado. Bust is at 7,500 feet, but in a deep anti-HF valley. It has a QTH rating of -18 dBi. The horizon is at +45 degrees in all directions. In the winter time the sunlight hits the canyon floor at 10 a.m. and it is gone at 2 p.m. It has an annual snowfall of 100 inches and a population of two.

You can see 'Bust' in the center of the satellite picture on this site:
http://www.city-data.com/city/Cascade-Chipita-Park-Colorado.html

There is a General Store there and not much else, as shown in the accompanying photograph. I hope they have a lot of cold Starbuck's Mocha Frappuccino (SMF) there. (SMF is a Must Have Item.)

Thanks for the all the contacts. The operation was not a Bust...
On March 1, 2005 I worked:

VE7CBU – John Trafford (British Columbia)
AE5X – John Harper (New York) (KX1 to KX1/pm contact)
W5KDJ – Wayne Rogers (Texas)
W3FF – Budd Drummond (California)
K9NY – Bill Kraft (Michigan)

This was probably the first HF Pedestrian Mobile operation from Bust. Maybe I should make up some special event QSLs.

I was operating Pedestrian Mobile on 14,060 KHz, hand holding my Elecraft KX1, using a 10 foot whip stuck in my rear pocket, a drag wire (another -12 dBi), snow boots and an SMF.
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Paul Signorelli, WØRW, is an avid QRPer, outdoorsman, pedestrian mobile operator and contester living in Colorado Springs, CO.