Activating EA8/TF-004 El Sombrero

 A long and challenging hike on a well marked path to a beautiful summit, 10 SOTA points

The hike was fairly long (2.5 hours up) and steep in parts, made particularly challenging by a lot of scree/rock chippings.  This made the ascent hard going (and tough on the legs) and the descent slow due to the slipping hazzard (and tough on the knees!).  But the path was quite well marked with cairns and was well worn to the top.  I had perfect blue sky warm weather with a cooling breeze.

 When nearly at the top, access to the summit is through a turnstile:

 The summit provided stunning views and a large activation area, and I did not see any other hikers  so had the summit to myself.  I set up my bandhopper antenna using rocks to hold the wires and string in place just below the summit.

I started the activation on 2m FM, with Fraser EA8/M0EFI first in the log with whom I had been in touch as he was holidaying on Gran Canaria.  He was on EA8/GC-011 and so this was the first of 3 summit-to-summit contacts.

I also contacted Fritz and Hans (EA8/HB9CYX, EA8/HB9BQU) on 2m FM who were on EA8/GC-005

 A further 2 on 2m, followed by just 3 qsos on 20m (which was very quiet) encouraged me to try 15m SSB.  There I enjoyed a further 8 QSOs including one across the pond with KC2WLR in New York.

I had planned TF-005 for the afternoon, but my weary legs were complaining and so I next returned to the easy EA8/TF-007 >>