Ahh.. The joys of living in California.. We sometimes get lovely spring weather in January, and this year we had lovely weather leading up to the January contest, and through the contest weekend.

So.. I decided that a 25+ year hiatus from backpacking was long enough, and that I would head up to the top of the nearest mountain for the contest. There happens to be a backpacking camp close to the summit, which makes for a convenient overnight operating location.

The camp is located on Black Mountain, on the West side of the SF Bay Area, above Palo Alto and Los Altos Hills, Ca. The elevation is a bit over 2800', in grid square CM87wh.

From the campsite, you have a good sweeping view of most of the bay area.

I packed up my camping gear, along with my ft-817, a 9.8ah Li-Ion battery, 10w solar panel, 6m inverted-V,  an 8' aluminum mast, some coax, and a pair of  WA5VJB "cheap yagis". The yagi's were built late the night before I left,  using 1/2" pvc pipe, and #12 copper wire.

I got a bit of a late start, and finally made it up to the campsite at around 4pm PDT. After setting up camp and the antennas, I started dinner, and took to the airwaves. I operated for about 3 hours on Saturday evening, and then again for about 4 hours on Sunday morning/early afternoon, before heading down the trail.

The antennas worked ok, although I had a bit of a SWR problem on the 432 yagi, which will require some additional tuning. I made contacts, so it wasn't a total failure, and I think I know where the problem may lie.

I had intended to stay Sunday night as well, but the gasket on the fuel cap had hardened, and was leaking, and after changing it, the stove refused to pressurize, so I decided to head down while I still had clean drinking water available.

Other than the stove problems, it was very a successful trip.

I made 63 Q's, working 5 grids each on 6m and 2m, and 4 grids on 432.

The trip was about 21 miles total, with a few extra miles on the back end due to a bus that doesn't run on Sunday. I got a good workout, and you can bet that I will do this again..