We should have known that Rojar would be busy since it’s quite close to the coast (and therefore tourist population) but I didn’t anticipate that the crowds would be up so early.

We arrived a good half hour before sunrise and already there were a couple of people sitting on the trig point, with more arriving at regular intervals. Too busy then to lash the pole against any of the few man-made structures on the summit, and attempts at guying a free-standing setup also failed because I couldn’t get my pegs into the rocky ground.

To make matters worse, I discovered that the sturdy looking bushes I’d been using to keep my backpack and jacket off the abrasive ground were actually quite fragile, and bled copious amounts of sticky white liquid all over our stuff. Oops.

We spent 20 minutes calling CQ on 2m after getting a self-spot out, but all I had was the ID-52 with stock antenna and it was ultimately unsuccessful. Packed up, headed down the same way we came.