The past 3 January VHF contests have seen 50 to 60 degrees with little precip in Arkansas. Mother Nature caught up for this one. 

  With the forecast for snow and ice, we altered our plan (what we thought was) accordingly: drop the northern grids and head for high ground to the west. Except the high ground to the west (Mt. Nebo EM35if) was covered in snow. We managed to make it up on Nebo and make a round of contacts, but icing on antennas was a big problem. We made it down safely.  

 The roads further to the southwest towards Rich Mtn. (EM24uq) were covered in snow and ice. Just a rough estimate of time, even if we made it up Rich Mtn. we'd be coming down after dark, and the road conditions didn't lend themselves to driving off a 2700 ft mountain in the dark. So we elected to head back towards central Arkansas.   

While on the very western edge of EM34, we started hearing gurgling on 50.125. A few more miles down the road and we could make out one of our fellow Arkansas rovers Pat W5VY/R. Pat was on West Mtn. in Hot Springs calling CQ. We worked a couple of bands with him and the bands were so hot that we managed to ragchew for about 20 minutes. He invited us to his QTH to see his shack and his rover setup, and I must say we were thoroughly impressed. He's on a whole different level of roving than we are.

After that we headed back to our home area NE of Little Rock. Managed to make a few contacts while mobile.  

Sunday we worked out some technical issues that had come up and went out to rove the local 4 corners. Managed to actually get 3 mobile FT8 contacts. Had some members of the local clubs STARS and NCAARS come out to give us some contacts.    

Not a benchmark score by us by any means. Happy to get to participate. Can't wait for June.   

Thanks to W5ZN and W5VY/R.