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.
This 10 point summit was chosen for today’s activation on the basis that parking should be easy for early arrivals, and that the whole way up is on marked paths. Add in a dead-end dogleg in order to reach the AZ and we should be in for a quiet morning.
Looking NW with Teide and the sunrise behind us
Ascent
We arrived at Mirador de las Narices del Teide when it was still dark, having driven up the TF-38 from Costa Adeje through temperatures which at one point dropped to 3℃, but rose again sharply to 10℃ by the time we rolled into the Mirador. Surprisingly there were already half a dozen cars in attendance, but plenty of room for more.
The start of the trail was easy to find and led off across crunchy lava paths into some low hills. I’m not sure whether this side of the road is part of the national reserve (the other side of TF-38 definitely is) but there was no need to leave the paths anyway, which were fairly easy to follow from one small cairn to another.
After 55 minutes on the clearly marked trail we peeled off to the left onto another smaller path, and 10 minutes later were at the top of Montaña del Cedro. By now it was light enough to see without torches though the sun had yet to break over the horizon.
Summit
The activation zone (AZ) at the summit was predictably strewn with large lumps of cooled lava, and some beautiful Canary Pines made for handy antenna guying points. No issue getting the Tactical Mini up and I also tried re-orienting the EFHW after an hour to see if I could get more out of it in a different direction, but the bands seemed pretty flat.
Contacts
After several attempts at self-spotting (very poor phone reception) I managed to get a shout on on 20m and a few stations started piling in, mostly those who had actively chased me on my previous summits here in the Canaries.
Propagation seemed quite poor today, though I did hear several VK stations and at one point was kindly allowed to break into a QSO between GM1DSK Steve and VK3EY Rob, there was no way this time around that Rob could hear me. A real shame – working VK while QRP portable would have been the icing on the cake today. There were no S2S contacts made despite it being Sunday, and nothing at all on VHF.
TIME
CALLSIGN
Band
Mode
Notes
08:35
EA7GV
14MHz
SSB
s59 r55
08:35
EA3ARP
14MHz
SSB
s43 r55
08:37
F5PYI
14MHz
SSB
s57 r55
08:39
SA4BLM
14MHz
SSB
s55 r53
08:52
GM1DSK
14MHz
SSB
s59 r57
09:03
F5WBN
18MHz
SSB
s59 r55
09:04
EA2BD
18MHz
SSB
s59 r57
09:04
EA7ANC
18MHz
SSB
s59 r55
09:05
2E0FEH
18MHz
SSB
s55 r57
09:06
SM4CJM
18MHz
SSB
s55 r55
09:07
HB9CYV
18MHz
SSB
s55 r42
09:09
EC8ADS
18MHz
SSB
s43 r52
09:11
SQ9CMO
18MHz
SSB
s42 r42
09:13
SM5LNE
18MHz
SSB
s53 r53
09:56
CQ7WWA
18MHz
SSB
s59 r59
Descent
Instead of coming back down the way we came we decided to make a loop of it and follow the previous path clockwise back to the mirador. At this stage we were still full of energy and toyed with the idea of activating another summit, but our chosen route back turned out to be more demanding than expected, and once out of the cooling breeze the rising temperatures sapped our energy. Still, it was refreshing being able to walk among the fragrant, charred Canary Pines and to see the pyroclastic flow from Teide’s last eruption.
Natural air freshenerThe last eruption
Also refreshing was the complete lack of people – we didn’t see another soul until we arrived back at the now crowded mirador, where several double-parked cars sprang into life as soon as it was obvious we would be vacating our spot. By now it was just after midday and we were both knackered, so we coasted back to the hotel and took Mum & Dad out for a sangria lunch.
Summary
A nice morning on the hill, with easy paths to the summit, plenty of space for antennas, no other people, and good parking for early arrivals. Had we retraced our steps instead of taking the scenic route we reckon we could have activated this one and been back at the car in 2.5 hours or so, but we also enjoy hiking as well as the occasional Geocache. It’s a holiday after all, right?
Our first ‘big’ one on Tenerife, Roque del Conde carries 8 points for a successful activation with another 3 points available for doing it in winter. And yes, I can’t believe I’m writing that as I sit here with the air conditioning cranked up, nursing a mild touch of sun.
Ascent
We’d earmarked some easy parking in Arona but decided to take a quick peek at Vento instead on our way to the trailhead, and found a spot just a few hundred yards from the start of our chosen route, not too near the local residents who must get fed up with this sort of thing judging by the number of makeshift ‘bollards’ outside one house.
The route we took led eastwards out of Vento into a small gorge, and then up through disused farmland along well-made rocky paths. After half an hour or so of easy walking the gradient increased and developed a sequence of switch-backs, but by then it was almost light enough to turn off our torches and navigate by daylight. In total we took 1h 25m to climb 426m over 3.26 km, and it was all fairly easy, but I was still glad I’d ditched my flight-case and jammed all the radio gear into my rucksack today.
Summit
The top of Roque del Conde is exactly as you’d imagine it from the Costa below; a fairly good sized plateau with plenty of room to move about. This meant that in order to survey the surrounding valleys and rolling clouds we had to walk about a bit first, and seeing as it was just us by that point I decided to last my pole to the trig point itself, hoping that I’d not made some kind of SOTA faux pas. Also worth noting that until we entered the plateau I had been enjoying almost perfect reception from my portable SHARI node, which was running from a battery pack on the hotel balcony way down below. Amazing bit of kit!
Today’s SOTA setup was again the EFHW for 40m, Icom IC-705 with tuner, and the ID-52 for VHF / UHF. My confidence in this setup is growing each day, and I left behind the just-in-case 20/40 Bandhopper and my JPC-12 vertical. Having deployed the EFHW on Roque de Jama two days ago I can’t imagine a summit too small now, though no doubt that day will come.
Contacts
I scanned 40m as soon as I had the wire up and there were a few stations rolling about, but that seemed to dry up quite quickly as the daylight increased. At home I’m used to 40m long skip giving way to EU and then inter-G, but I guess out here there’s no equivalent to inter-G and it all goes quiet on 40. 20m was jumping though, and it took me a while to find a clear space near the QRP centre. I put a spot out and soon had some people coming back to my call, including callsigns familiar from the past two days. Some very dedicated chasers out there!
Nobody from Japan this time, but Ukraine, Slovenia, Slovak Republic and Austria were all well represented, as well as more local EU stations. The icing on the cake for me at that point was Alex GM5ALX/P whose spot I picked up on the tracker, and managed to work a Summit-to-Summit of 3,400 km all the way to Scotland! Bet I was warmer than him. Once I’d reeled in 24 contacts in 16 countries I packed up the antenna just as the first hikers arrived, and wanted to know if we’d camped up here!
2m FM S2S with Raúl EA8AMTAnd this is why we start early
We took another walk around the plateau in order to see if I could get my SHARI node again, and I came across Raúl EA8AMT on 145.525 all the way from El Hierro, another island in the canaries, and my second S2S contact today. Absolutely amazing.
Time
Callsign
Band
Mode
Notes
08:58
DL8DXL
14MHz
SSB
s43 r33
08:59
ON4FI
14MHz
SSB
s53 r55
09:01
ON7ZM
14MHz
SSB
s44 r44
09:02
OK2PDT
14MHz
SSB
s55 r55
09:03
DL1EBR
14MHz
SSB
s59 r59
09:04
IK2ECC
14MHz
SSB
s59 r59
09:06
SQ9CWO
14MHz
SSB
s31 r44
09:07
DL1EJG
14MHz
SSB
s55 r55
09:07
UT5PI
14MHz
SSB
s55 r55
09:08
OM3CND
14MHz
SSB
s55 r57
09:10
EA3EVL
14MHz
SSB
s53 r53
09:11
EA6/M0DLL
14MHz
SSB
s55 r55
09:13
OE5JKL
14MHz
SSB
s53 r53
09:14
S58AL
14MHz
SSB
s51 r54
09:15
F4GYM
14MHz
SSB
s57 r53
09:16
S52RA
14MHz
SSB
s53 r55
09:17
I1EEW
14MHz
SSB
s43 r44
09:18
CT7BOD
14MHz
SSB
s55 r55
09:18
M7HGO
14MHz
SSB
s55 r54
09:19
EA2CKX
14MHz
SSB
s43 r43
09:26
GM5ALX/P
14MHz
SSB
s43 r31
09:35
CR5WWA
18MHz
SSB
s59 r59
09:50
EA8AMT
144MHz
FM
s55 r59 – ID-52 stock antenna 5w
Descent
By the time I’d finished with Raúl there were maybe 12 or 15 people on the summit, climbing on the trig point and generally milling about where my antennas was half an hour earlier. Guessing that there would be more hikers making their way up via the same route which we had taken, we resolved to try and find the other way off Roque Del Conde, and that turned out to be quite a challenging descent, with many opportunities to crawl down backwards while holding on with both hands. I was more glad than ever that I’d stuffed my radio gear into my camera bag for this hike and left the Fuji X-T5 behind, because I don’t think I’d have gotten down here in one piece while carrying a flight case. The return route is shown as a northerly track on the embedded map below, which then flattens out eastwards and rejoins the original trail for a few short meters before ending up back in Vento. I’m very glad we did it this way around.
Summary
A brilliant morning of SOTA, with Roque del Conde nowhere hear as daunting as we may have imagined from the safety of our hotel balcony. The paths to the summit were good enough to have ascended in complete darkness, though it was light enough to switch the torches off 45 minutes before sunrise and we enjoyed an easy hike all the way. The northerly route would have been an altogether different story, at least for a net-new activation. Glad we got lucky and did it this way around, culminating with another summit in the bag and the mother of all club sandwiches for breakfast afterwards. With sangria. Cheers!
Today we activated a peak close to our hotel on Costa Adeje, TF-016 Guaza. It was another early start and we had intentions of getting up to the top well before sunrise, but our chosen parking location near a local garage turned out to be quite busy despite the time of day, so we looked around for somewhere more discreet and found a nice spot just down the road. Unfortunately this meant walking back up the unlit, busy road without a verge, so we were very glad when we found what looked like an alternative path to the summit.
Ascent
In hindsight we should have just taken the road and stuck with plan A, but after yesterday’s easy jaunt up TF-014 we were feeling confident and headed out into the scrub with our torches. It soon became apparent that this was the kind of ‘path’ where you need occasional use of both hands, and, ideally, daylight. The climb took us just under an hour and was a bit sketchy in places, so definitely not one to recommend. (it’s the south-westerly path in the embedded map below, following Tableros de Guaza)
Taking a breather on the way up TF-016 Guaza
The other disadvantage of not sticking to our original route (nor consulting a contour map) is that our ad-hoc ascent took us to the wrong summit, though getting to the right one was merely a matter of following a short dirt road. By now it was just light enough to see without the use of torches, and as the moon went down behind us the sun rose behind Guaza proper.
Summit
There’s a veritable forest of commercial antennas up on Guaza and I was concerned at the possibility of QRM, though on the plus side there should also be a fairly decent access road to follow down. In the end we had no difficulty with man-made noise, though the 40m band was a tad quiet. Put that down to conditions.
The six metre Tactical Mini was deployed with some bungees to a dead cactus, and I strung up my 40m EFHW a little distance from the commercial installation and the obvious tracks leading through it. In the time we were up there we only saw a couple of walkers, but the summit’s proximity to town probably makes it quite busy at times.
Cactus AntennaSmall rig, big twig
Contacts
The contacts came flooding in after a bit of self-spotting (good phone signal up near those masts!) and in 1h 21m I worked 26 stations all over Europe. Conditions didn’t seem to be as good as they were yesterday though we heard one Japanese station in QSO with somebody else. ZL and VK were also out there apparently but not heard by me. Speaking of which, I still think I need to improve my EFHW’s reception somehow because even on 10w I’m being heard far better than I’m able to receive. Tried twiddling with the filters a bit but without a set of headphones it was ultimately not helpful.
Time
Callsign
Band
Mode
Notes
08:20
OK2PDT
14MHz
SSB
s55 r55
08:22
SA4BLM
14MHz
SSB
s53 r33
08:23
EA5JN
14MHz
SSB
s55 r55
08:24
EA3EVL
14MHz
SSB
s55 r55
08:25
DH5PR
14MHz
SSB
s53 r55
08:27
IK4CBO
14MHz
SSB
s43 r53
08:27
EA1MJ
14MHz
SSB
s57 r59
08:28
DL5OAH
14MHz
SSB
s51 r41
08:30
M3ZLA
14MHz
SSB
s59 r57
08:31
EA4GOK
14MHz
SSB
s59 r59
08:32
HB9DHA
14MHz
SSB
s57 r52
08:33
EA5EM
14MHz
SSB
s57 r59
08:35
EA4FGB
14MHz
SSB
s55 r55
08:37
EA8DGC
14MHz
SSB
s59 r59
08:37
EA4GJP
14MHz
SSB
s55 r55
08:38
SQ9JYK
14MHz
SSB
s55 r55
08:39
EA3ARP
14MHz
SSB
s54 r55
09:09
EA7GV
18MHz
SSB
s59 r54
09:10
SQ9CWO
18MHz
SSB
s43 r44
09:11
ON4FI
18MHz
SSB
s43 r33
09:13
SM5LNE
18MHz
SSB
s43 r52
09:15
OK1KT
18MHz
SSB
s43 r55
09:18
S57ILF
18MHz
SSB
s51 r42
09:19
DD7UW
18MHz
SSB
s41 r33
09:39
G0CDX
14MHz
SSB
s53 r31
09:41
DG4SKN
14MHz
SSB
s41 r43
Descent
By the time I’d packed everything up it was getting quite warm, and with the arduous ascent behind us we forgot all about taking the long access road down, and instead went to look for the route which we should have taken on the way up. Thankfully it was quite easy to find and yes, would have made for a much easier ascent. It’s the north-south path in the embedded map below, and I strongly recommend it over the other way.
Summary
A great morning of SOTA despite difficulty in getting up the hill. The lesson here is to have a reliable route in place and stick to it, especially when carrying too much equipment in the dark. I looked back at the activity recorded by my Garmin fitness tracker and in terms of exercise load the ascent was roughly on par with a brisk 5 km run. Good to know.
