VK2/MN-001, Mount Carson - Barrington Tops National Park, 15/08/2017, by David, VK2NU and Tony, VK2WFT.
For a while I've been looking at summits in Barrington Tops NP, especially VK2/MN-120, which is a 10 point summit. Being winter, I had planned to leave it until later in the year as Barrington can get pretty cold, but when checking the forecast for my days off this week, I noticed a spell of unseasonably warm/dry weather forecast for the period.
Plan 1, my initial recce on Google Maps showed a Trail leading to both MN-120 and the nearby MN-001. The area is about a 3.5 hours drive from home, but for a 10 and 8 point summit this seemed worth it (maybe!).
However, further checking showed that the trail to Mount Carson was not suitable for 2wd vehicles, and that it would be most likely blocked anyway. OK, Plan 2, walk to Mount Carson, and do a 'drive by' activation of Brumlow Tops.. "should be possible in a day"?
Plan 3, thanks to info from VK2IO Gerard, which was backed up by a visit to the National Parks website, it turns out that the trails in this area are closed to all vehicles between June-October, killing off any chance of a double activation in 1 day.
OK, so only one summit is possible, but which? This basically came down to Google Maps, which showed that Mount Carson, was pretty much directly on the Trail, was a little closer, and involved a lot less 'up and down', on the legs.
This would be our furthest distance hiked to a summit, so only having a climb of 180m or so, seemed appealing.
A 5.15am start, pick up VK2WFT, followed by a 3.5 hour drive, via M1, Singleton, Musswellbrook, Aberdeen, Gundy, Moonan Flats, then take the turn off to Barrington Tops NP. Arrived at the locked gate on Barrington Trail at about 9.30am. Google Maps said a walk of 6.3km = 1.5 hours!!
Barrington Trail - Closed to Vehicles June-October
Trail Head for Mount Carson (approx 500m south from the car park)
I'm now in my 50's, and VK2WFT is well in his 60's, so we actually didn't get to the summit until just after noon (2.5 hours). The Trail is easy to follow, well defined, but blocked in several places by fallen trees (I assume these are cleared when the trails reopen in October?). There are also many tripping hazards, in the form of branches and rocks on the Trail - Beware!
Mount Carson Trail, just over halfway, at the low point.
The final ascent to the 'summit'.
Trees blocking Trail at Summit
There is a lot of horse 'poop' on the trail, and judging by the quantity I guess it gets used a lot by pony trekkers. This is certainly no Mount Royal, but by the time we made the summit, I still needed a few minutes to pull myself together before setting up station.
tree limb, to support the 404-UL OCF Dipole
The usual station, KX3 - 15w
We wasted a small amount of time looking for the actual summit, and I could not find a Trig Marker, even though my GPS was showing the exact coordinates as shown on the Mapping Function of SOTAWatch. If there is one there, it is well hidden! Regardless, the summit area is pretty flat and the activation zone covers a section of track over 100m long (possibly longer).
We used the usual station, but this time supported the antenna from a fishing line in a tree (of which there are many large ones). For this purpose I used a $5 catapult sourced through eBay.. "Yes I know that these are 'not legal' in certain states", hence why I was only willing to risk paying $5 (if it got confiscated in postage - no big loss).
This method of hanging the antenna worked well, but needs some fine tuning still (smaller sinker, and reel).
Log book filling up.... I've ordered some SOTA log books from hamshop.cz, so
hopefully I can retire the old pad soon.
14 contacts were made on 40m (SSB and CW)... This is better than our average, and maybe the e-mail post to the VK-SOTA reflector announcing the activation helped?? We had a listen on 20m, but the band seemed pretty dead (solar minimums suck!), so job done we were packed up by 1.30pm and ready to leave.
Long pants...not for long!
Being winter, I took the larger pack, and a heap of extra clothes in case the wx forecast was wrong. These were not needed though and once we started walking were quickly taken off and put in the pack. Temp on the summit was close to 20ºC!! I still took the Haverford 9m pole, but this may get less use now because of the catapult (at least on summits with trees).
Stuff up of the day was shared this week...
I forgot my water bottle, and by the end of the return walk I was feeling pretty light headed, which I assume was due to mild dehydration? Moral of the story, 'check your pack, and then check again'. "As I type this I'm on my third bottle of Corona, and hydration has returned".
However, Tony doesn't get off, and at one stage I heard him spelling out his name phonetically to a chasing station "Delta, Alpha, Victor, India, Delta".... I think we've all lost our train of thought mid-QSO, but forgotten who we are?????
Thanks to everyone who called us.. Both the new stations and the ones who are there often, especially VK7CW for holding on for that CW QSO. Sorry, no scenic pictures this time.... The whole route is shrouded in trees with only limited, blocked views... However, the road up from Moonan Flats is quite spectacular, and worth a stop to snap a picture or two..
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