December 2006

It all started mid summer in mid July when my friend John Evans, NØHJ, got me interested in hiking the Colorado Trail. The CT starts just southwest of Denver and winds 483 beautiful but rugged miles across the Rocky Mountains to Durango, CO. To find out more CT see: www.coloradotrail.org

After our earlier and most enjoyable completion of trail segments 3, 4 and 5 (~ 45 miles) of the Colorado Trail, we were eager to knock off another couple segments before winter weather set in.

I especially was eager to launch some high altitude RF with my newly-constructed AST3a.

Which I had spent several weeks worth of evenings staring through a magnifier-lamp soldering tiny SMD parts together but amazedly they all now somehow worked together in a tiny Altoids tin.

This time CT segments 6 and 7 looked more challenging with several high passes but seemed very doable based on our prior experience and wiliness to explore new turf. With it now being early fall in CO we paid close attention to the weather not wanting to get ourselves in the middle an early fall snowstorm (so we hoped). We rechecked the long range forecast several times before committing boot leather. It warned of several T-storms but we really hadn't planned on a constant rain and/or snow! So went the journey.

We got off to a good sunny start with John’s wife dropping us off late Thursday morning at the trailhead on Kenosha Pass.

John had quickly launched his single 45’ wire in tree plus a 16’ radial laid out by the tent and was ready to see who he could work with his creatively packaged ATS3 (see John’s ARS story on his ATS ). He also had his newly built homebrewed ALT based on Steve’s KD1JV ALT design replacing his homebrewed version of the Fuches ATU we had used on our last CT trip which didn’t perform as expected (which may have been operator error or construction error …yet TBD).

Meanwhile I had hung my 44’ doublet w/RS twin lead in a near by spruce, jumped into my tent and dug out my ATS3a and tuner I was stoked! Plugged in the headphones, lashed together my homebrew ZM-2/BLT(shown here with homebrew my 20mSST for an earlier adventure) with twin lead and routed it back to the ATS.

“All set”, I thought as leaned back against my sleeping bag. I then grabbed my new and expensive ultra-light weight Lithpolly battery. Just then a mournful cry was heard echoing across that peaceful meadow but it wasn’t a coyote! Just this old goat who had realized that JOY was out of his reach for this trip.(sigh!) I’d forgotten the power connector to the ATS. You know the little .7mm plug that was lying on my desk at home. So my ATS with accessories at this point was going to be as good a 1-pound rock in the bottom of my pack …the whole rest of the trip! GRRrr!

Meanwhile John was joyfully using his ATS3 w/ALT setup and snagged our first CT/6 QSO on 30m with Ron W2RIP who generously emailed a message home to John’s XYL:

Received via 30 meter CW QSO on 9:15 EDT on Thursday
Hi,
I'm a ham and just had a chat with John. He asked me to send the following message . . ..
"We are fine. Location is F070"
Best Regards,
Ron Foster - W2RIP
End of message

While dark clouds gathered overhead. I sulked myself to sleep in my tent over my stupidity for forgetting my power cable connector!

Surprisingly next morning was dry but menacing gray clouds hung over our meadow. I was still grumbling at myself over the silly power cable incident and thus slow to get moving! Hence I got caught with all my gear exposed and tent still up when the drizzle started. John fortuitously had packed his gear up early. Leaving a wet meadow behind I shouldered my wet pack and gear as we headed for the ~12,000’ Georgia Pass. 5 miles into the trek our light rain turned to snow.

We marched head on into a freezing wind chill with blizzard like conditions and low visibility as we neared the pass.

Trying to stay on trail was a becoming challenging between the wind and visibility. There were markers (cairns) about 100 feet which you could just barely make out through the blowing snow and ground fog. Once over the pass the trail disappointedly stayed at elevation for what seemed like over a mile or more! Fighting off the freezing head wind and slick going we trudged onward hoping for a quick decent once over the top – but not to be had!

Finally we took cover behind some stunted trees and refueled on some dry salami. I pulled off my parka and changed my cold sweaty shirt for warm dry one while John fished for his gloves then returned to fighting our way back down to warmer temps over the snow slickened rocks! Once below timber line we sighed a relief as the wind let up it and snow turned to a light off-and-on rain under brighter clouds. Finally about 9 miles from the pass we were blessed with sunshine and a beautiful campsite next to a good size stream.

The campsite looked like a bunch of Gypsies lived there ...our clothes were hanging from every bush and tree soaking up that good old CO sunshine. Our gear dried fast and we had a warm meal with happy thoughts about knowing we’d sleep dry tonight!

Earlier on the trail on our way down from the pass John (being the good friend he is) mentioned he’d shared his ATS by saying “it was my turn at radio watch tonight” (the only working ATS on this trip, still grrr). (woohoo, I thought!) With antenna hung 45’ straight up above my tent in the tall pines I was really jazzed to see if I could launch a signal out our little mountain valley! A light drizzled started again but no signs of thunder or lightening anywhere! John gave me some pointers on his tuner (ALT) and I dove into my tent. I heard several stations on 30/40m but I kept falling a sleep at the key. Fatigue had the best of me! I QRTed to well earned night of rest in my dry tent. It rained all night!  
When I woke before 6AM I crawled out the tent for a short relief break to find it stopped raining finally. Dove back in to find 40m was hopping with signals. A brief CQ yielded a reply from John N0EVH who graciously offered to email my XYL this message:

from: John NØEVH
Received via 40 meter CW QSO this morning at 8:15 AM CST
Message follows:
RAINED YESTERDAY AND SNOW ON PASS
WE ARE DRY AND WARM
AT 20 MILE MARK ON MAP
LOVE STEVE 
End of message
John N0EVH
Independence, MO
----- End forwarded message -----

I was absolutely thrilled! Having the ATS(s) with us on our trip was not only fun but very useful in getting message back to civilization. Once again after another drying out session in the morning sun we packed up and hit the wet trail in light rain. We caught a glimpse of the next 12,000' mountain range that lay ahead of us we saw the snow level had dropped down to timber line and looking at the map we notice the trail over the pass stayed above timber line for 8-miles! Woowee!

We decided we had enough FUN at this point. It was time to cut short our CT adventure as we approached Breckenridge, CO. With 33 miles behind us and yet another segment (#6) of the CO Trail successfully logged we were happy to leave the CT ahead for another day! Great learning experiences as always when dealing ma nature and the value of having “all” your gear packed and ready for whatever nature throws your way.

I’m always amazed how cool it is to belong to the ham radio fraternity which has skilled operators standing by ready to relay messages if the need arises! Really comes in handy when your miles from nowhere and a cell phone is just another rock in your pocket!  
A little over 400 CT miles to go!

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Steve Galchutt, NØTU, is a longtime QRPer and expert outdoorsman living in  Monument, CO.