AdanVK1: November 2015

On the same weekend that Andrew VK1NAM cracked the 1000 point barrier to become a SOTA Goat and Andrew VK1DA passed 500 points to become half a Goat, I creeped past 100 points. My glacial pace mostly due to my choice of activating local 1 and 2 point summits before I thought to look further for high value summits. Interestingly, due to the way that SOTA summits have their points allocated, the ACT has many 1 pointers very close to Canberra, that if they were located in NSW, would have been at least worth 4 points. Take for example Mount Majura at 888 meters or Rob Roy at 1099 meters, respectively 1 and 2 pointers in the ACT, but also both higher than Spring Hill, a 4-pointer located just across the ACT border in NSW.

One night I opened my computer and had a look at OzTopo maps, looking for clusters of higher scoring summits, similar to the trio of Webs Ridge, Baldy Range and Dingi Dingi that pushed me over the 100 point line. I identified three peaks in the Tinderies to the west of Canberra and two peaks south of Namadgi near Yaouk. I decided to go for the southern peaks first because they looked more accessible than the Tinderies. After a bit of planning, a mate - Francois - and I headed down Boboyan road on our way to Mount Morgan VK2/SM-011 and Half Moon Peak VK2/SM-016. The plan was to take the road to Yaouk, then Kennedy’s trail and finally Lone Pine fire trail all the way to the top of the ridge next to Mount Morgan from where we would scrub bash our way to the top.

We made good time and arrived at the Lone Pine Trail head around 08:30. I had come this way a few weeks before on a recce mission and could not get up the trail for lack of grip on my 2WD ute. As part of the recce, I walked a few hundred meters up the trail and because I saw no gates, assumed it was all good to the top. Things did not go according to plan. About 500 meters further up the trail than where I had come to earlier, we came to a locked pipe across the road. We would have to heel it from there. This added an extra 4 Km to our return journey and killed the idea of going for both Mount Morgan and Half Moon Peak on the same day.

We started climbing and made good time, covering the 2 Km of fire trail in about 45 minutes. Along the trail we came across (what we took to be) a fancy earthworm: black on top, and light blue below, we were very impressed by our “discovery”. We wondered aloud if locked fire trail gates was in the rural fire service’s best interests: when roads are unused they fall in disrepair, are overgrown etc. Surely, we thought, there had to be a better way to control access than just to lock down every fire trail. We toyed with a few ideas and in no time we turned into the bush and started descending to the saddle at the foot of Mount Morgan’s north-eastern slope. The scrub was not too bad and we could easily weave through the obstacle course.

Halfway up Lone Pine Trail

At the saddle we heard the burbling sound of running water but could see nothing. There were a few dead trees and shrubs that had fallen or grown over a small stream. The water sounded substantial and we made our way across the stream by walking on the sturdiest of dead tree trunks, holding on to dead branches and scrub. We crossed at about S35.73060 E148.79587 (have a look at the GPS track below). After the brook it was up all the way from 1500 meters to the summit at 1874 meters.

A river runs through it - this is where we crossed by walking over tree trunks.

Immediately after the stream the scrub was pretty thick and we had to push through a few small gaps in the growth. The scrub thinned out somewhat and about halfway up we took a short break on a convenient tea break rock. After encountering the first big rocks it wasn’t far before we came upon a large clearing - a nice meadow with tussock grass, short flowery shrubs and a few beautiful old Snow Gums.

Nice meadow with Snow Gums not too far from the summit.

We pushed on and could see the summit to our right, towards the north of our track. We walked up to the ridge and followed along it to the summit. On our way there we walked past big granite tors and one that reminded me of Obelix, Goscinny and Uderzo’s menhir delivering Gaul.

The menhir a la Asterix and Obelix.

We arrived at the summit at 11:45, after about 3 hours of walking. The summit was large and flat, about the size of 3 or 4 football fields. It was covered in tussocky grass, flowering shrubs, Snow Gums and Granite tors. The view was brilliant - 360 degrees unimpeded by any trees or other summits. In the valley to the south we could see what we later identified as lake Eucumbene, 27 Km away. At the highest point Francois found a geocache, placed there by year 12 students from Narrabundah College. It contained a book with the names and comments of other people who had been on the summit. Some of the messages had us in stitches.

View to the South with Lake Eucumbene in the distance.

It was just before 12:00 so I went back down from the highest granite tor to the grassy field below to set-up. As I was unpacking, a familiar feature of the last 3 summits showed its face: hundreds of little black ants. They were everywhere and were really keen to walk on everything.

Francois helped me set-up and after about 10 minutes I was ready to go.

The shack on Mount Morgan.

I operated for about 45 minutes, making 10 contacts. After calling for about 5 minutes on 40 meters with no more responses, I packed up, took a few pictures and built a small SOTA cairn - add a rock next time when you are there. Just before we left I got a text message from Andrew VK1NAM who suggested we try to make a contact on 144 SSB - it was quick to get the rig and little yagi out and we had a great contact, very easy to copy regardless of being cross polarized at first.

SOTA Cairn

It was a great day with excellent weather and company - thank you Francois for coming along!

Contacts Made

Conditions were pretty ordinary on 40 meters. (That's an Aussie English euphemism for "conditions really sucked".) I did not have my link dipole antenna with me - it had broken the day before - and the quick and nasty 40m dipole I had made up couldn’t be adjusted for other bands. I had also forgotten the coax for the 2 meter yagi, which meant it couldn’t be mounted on the squid pole but I had to hold it up whenever I wanted to use it with the short coax pigtail.

I made a total of 11 contacts, three on 146.5 Simplex FM, seven on 7.09 SSB and one contact on 142.2 SSB. I managed four S2S contacts. A great big thank you to Tony VK1VIC who went to Mount Rob Roy and to Andrew VK1DA who was on Mount Mundoonen, both whom had gone out to summits to chase me on Mount Morgan. I managed a further S2S with Tony VK1VIC on 40 meters and also with Tony VK3CAT who was on Mount Little Joe in Victoria.

In summary, I made the following contacts:

Thank you for each contact!

Apology for missing everyone on 144.150 SSB

Unbeknownst to me, Andrew VK1DA sent an email to the VK1 Reflector to rustle up some 2 meter contacts because he knew that the propagation on 40 meters would be pretty ordinary - and that I would need every single contact on 2 meters to qualify the summit. Unfortunately he sent this email around 07:00 on Sunday morning and I did not know about it, having left home at 06:00. If I had, I would have called on 144.150 SSB as he had suggested in his email. Many thanks to Andrew who tried to help and sent that email, and also sorry to everyone who was on 144.150 SSB waiting for me to call there.

Special Permissions or Arrangements

No special arrangements are necessary. All access is via public roads. From Canberra, drive south on Boboyan road. Take the Yaouk road and turn off to Kennedy’s road. Go past the old Yaouk homestead and after the next gate, turn left onto Lone Pine trail. There are a number of gates on Kennedy’s road and although the 2nd last one before Lone Pine Trail has a notice about locked gates and private property beyond that point, John Evans has assured me that the road itself is for public access. Mount Morgan is in Kosciusko National Park, VKFF-0269.

Summit Information

Mount Morgan’s summit is 1874 meters above mean sea level and it is worth 10 SOTA activation points, plus a 3 point winter bonus. Its Maidenhead locator is QF44jg.
The huge summit consists of tussock grass, shrubs, rock slabs, granite tors and a few Snow Gums.
Mount Morgan is within easy reach of the Mt. Ginini repeater and I had Telstra mobile phone coverage.

Equipment Used

Yaesu FT817, Link dipole held up by a DX Wire squid pole and my improved Tape Measure Yagi for 2 meters.

Useful Links

GPS GPX Track Log and pictures: Dropbox Link.

Half Moon Peak - next time...

On 25 October Andrew VK1NAM, Al VK1RX and I set off to have a go at Mount Gudgenby in the Namadgi National Park. I have had Gudgenby on the brain for a few months - it was one of the last few unactivated summits in VK1 and an 8-pointer to boot. I sent an email to the VK1 SOTA group and Andrew and Al decided to come along. I picked up Andrew and met Al at his house whereafter we set off down Boboyan road to Yankee Hat Car Park.

We arrived just after 07:30 and set off with push bikes down the fire trails. Using bikes helped us cover the first 3.8 Km in 35 minutes. We left the bikes in the bush and picked up the little footpad trail to Gudgenby saddle. I read about this trail on John Evans' blog and we had no trouble finding it, where the fire trail veers away from Gudgenby. We made good progress and reached the Gudgenby saddle after 3.2 Km and 1 hour 25 minutes. We had a quick break in a clearing where feral pigs destroyed the forest floor looking for treats. It was unbelievable to see how they had ripped up an area roughly equivalent to 2 or 3 tennis courts.

Gudgenby peeking through the scrub

We started our ascent and, because the scrub wasn’t too bad, were making good progress. After about 1.2 Km and 1 hour 15 minutes, Andrew VK1NAM stopped and said that he was suffering from really bad stomach cramps, such that he could not continue. He would wait at that spot for Al and I to meet him when we returned form the summit. I asked Andrew if he would continue once he felt better, but he reminded me of one of the lessons from people surviving in the aussie bush: when you are in trouble stay put where you are, especially if people know where you are. It was a shame to loose Andrew, and Al and I continued, trying to return as fast as we could.

Andrew and Al - just after the Gudgenby saddle

As basis for navigation we used a GPX file from one of John Evans’ trips and it really helped with our navigation. Just after we left Andrew, Al and I ran into what surely counts as some of the thickest scrub I have run into on any summit so far. We continued to also run into vertical walls of rock where we had to find a way around. In one case we found a small slot to squeeze up and through, just wide enough for a person with a backpack. There were a lot of small dead gum trees, their trunks at odd angles blocking the way, as if someone had been playing “pick up sticks”. The only way to get through was to balance and walk on the horizontal trunks while weaving through and holding onto the horizontal ones.

Once clear of the scrub, we ran into our next level of challenges. Ahead of us was an unbroken slab of volcanic rock running up at an angle of about 30 to 35 degrees for about 60 meters. We scratched our heads a bit but in the end dropped on all fours and scrambled up, not looking back down. Low body position, steer clear of the lichen and keep on going. We reached a step in the rock plate where the angle flattened out for about 10 meters before it continued at a similar angle for a further 60 or 80 meters. We pushed on and ran out of rock with the summit cairn in sight.

Climb baby, climb!

This was a tricky bit we had to go up to make the summit. We had two alternative routes we could take and both was equally steep - about 10 meters of rock slanted at about 45 degrees with a narrow channel of moist soil and grass at the edge. Al tried the one on the right but after about 5 meters he scooted back down, not liking what he saw. We took the left-hand path by leaning forward, looking for footholds and clambering up to the summit. There was a slight decrease in the angle as we got higher, with the rock slowly flattening out. We had made it! It took us 59 minutes to climb the last 170 meters (distance of 880 meters) after we left Andrew to make the summit.

Gudgenby Summit and Cairn

Walking around we took in the sights for about 2 minutes before we started setting up. Gudgenby’s summit has many big tors laying about, most of these about 1.5 meters high and flat on top. The summit has a beautiful rock cairn with Trig point. Al and I each made a few contacts on 2 meters, Andrew was the first contact for both of us. Because Gudgenby is so high, we had great 2 meter coverage, and I had a really good contact with Andrew VK1MBE who was on Mount Gillamatong near Braidwood. We set up Andrew’s squid pole and link dipole antenna along with his FT817 (He passed all this kit to us when we left him to recover) ready to go. Just before we started operating on HF, Al and I decided to make one of the flat top tors our perch - we were trying to get away from swarms of small black ants. These little guys obviously don’t get out that often and were really excited by our arrival. They were crawling over absolutely everything: running up the suit pole, running down the coax, climbing into backpacks and crawling up our legs, arms, faces… You get the picture.

This was our operating perch - to get away from millions of black ants

Propagation conditions were pretty good. Our first call received a huge response with maybe the better part of about 20 callers responding at the same time. It was quite the pile-up. I have never experienced that before and after thinking about it, in future I will respond by first asking for Summit to Summit contacts, then mobiles and then proceed by callsign, first all VK1s, VK2s next etc. Not sure if this is fair but it may bring a bit of structure to the chaos - it is nigh impossible to know who called first, let alone note down every caller. Al and I continued for about 30 minutes before we packed up, snapped a few last pictures and bolted.

Going down was interesting. We managed to crab walk up the rock slab, but made our way down on our bums. Something to be said for a bit of padding in the rear. ;-) We bashed our way though the scrub and met up with Andrew who to much relief was feeling better. We returned the way we came, collected the bikes in the bush and enjoyed a well-deserved cup of hot tea with biscuits at the cars.

It was a great day and Gudgenby is an epic summit to enjoy. Pretty tough to get to but it's such a great spot that the effort was worth it. This is not a summit to attempt on your own unless you own a jet-pack. Thank you to Andrew and Al for your company!

The view to the North West