W2/GC-010 - Bearpen Mountain / W2/GC-062 - Vly Mountain
Bearpen - W2/GC-010 and Vly - W2/GC-062 started out very similar to my activation of Huntersfield the day prior. No drive up, but the first portion of the hike starts out marching up a snowmobile / jeep trail. The weather was damp once again, thankfully no rain, just a light mist.
After hiking a little under a mile up the jeep trail, you come to a fork in the road and what I'm assuming is a snowmobile shack / hang out spot. If you go left, you'll continue on the path up to the Bearpen Mountain - W2/GC-010 summit. If you head right, you'll pick up a herd path and make your way up Vly Mountain- W2/GC-062.
Since Bearpen is the longer of the two hikes, I decided to get that out of the way first. It's a steady steep 2.5+ miles up to the summit mostly along the jeep / snowmobile trail. There is a herd path shortcut section for hikers, since the jeep trail takes a longer path out and around.
Once I reached the summit of Bearpen, the mist changed over to a light rain and I found myself missing the lean-to from the day before.
I set up under a tree and knocked out 8 QSOs on 20 meters as quickly as possible. I had some great DX with France, Spain and Germany. As well as 1 S2S contact with WB2FUV, who was also activating on a near by summit.
I followed the path back down to the fork in the road and began the trek up Vly. There isn't an official trail up to the summit, but the trees are marked with blue paint which makes it easy to follow in case you lose the herd path. Vly is a fairly short hike but covers about 1000ft of elevation in a mile. Once I passed the 3500ft mark the weather shifted back to a light misty rain, but it was tolerable.
I spent a little more time working on Vly than Bearpen and logged 13 QSOs with a bunch of Summit 2 Summit Contacts.
2m FM - 2 QSOs w/ 2 S2S
15m - 2 QSOs w/ 1 S2S
20m - 7 QSOs w/ 1 S2S
40m - 2 QSOs w/ 2 S2S
This was the first day of the W2 SOTA campout, so I knew the S2S contacts would only get better the following day.
