Many thanks to Brian K3ES who submits this awesome report.
As I write this report, we are currently visiting with my parents at their home near San Francisco, CA. Getting here from our Pennsylvania home and back again is a continuing great adventure for my wife Becky, POTA Pup Molly, and me. You see, this is a grand road trip, complete with sight seeing, activating POTA parks in new-to-me states, and lots of driving. While much of the trip has been planned, there have been frequent changes to the route and schedule, as better opportunities presented themselves. One such opportunity was to deviate from interstate highway travel between Montana and Idaho, and divert to lesser-traveled highways. This detour enabled us to fit in a drive through Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. Sadly, we were only able to take the time to see a small fraction of the natural splendor. We did see enough to create the resolve to return for a proper exploration of the wonders that we had to miss.
The Welcoming Committee: I had to stop again just after the entrance plaza leading into the park. These elk, along with a number of their friends, were standing beside the road to greet us.Mammoth Hot Springs. To get this picture, Becky hiked along planked walkways and climbed a great number of steps. Sadly we could only stop and look for a few minutes during our drive.
We made a handful of stops on our drive through Yellowstone, including a couple of hours at the Old Faithful geyser. One challenge of traveling with Molly, is that dogs are not always welcome in interesting areas. Another challenge is that, having been rescued from an abusive situation, she can respond unpredictably to other dogs. So, Becky and I have often taken turns with one of us exploring the sights, while the other remained in the truck with Molly. At this stop, Becky was the designated sight-seer for an impending eruption of Old Faithful (she takes better pictures), and I stayed in the truck with Molly.
*No explanation needed*Becky got some great action shots Old Faithful!
My goal for this summer is to do more backpacked day-trip POTA activations while I’m still physically able to. This is my 4th backpacked-in activation this past week or so. And a thank you to Thomas K4SWL for letting me share my adventures from the Canadian out-back.
Today’s goal is to activate Trout Creek Ecological Reserve, CA-4221 which is about one-hour drive south of Kelowna, BC, Canada, which is where my wife Alexis (VE7LXE) and I (VE7EFF) have lived for the past 12 years. Alexis accompanies me on all my POTA activations.
It is a beautiful late August day. The temperature is expected to be about 31℃, or 88℉. The one-hour drive is just the beginning of the day’s adventure. We were able to conveniently park at the Summerland Golf and Country Club, but this is where all conveniences end for us.
Trout Creek Ecological Reserve has never been activated before – I’ll be the first. It’s no surprise this reserve hasn’t been activated before. It’s all wilderness with no trails to follow. I have to rely on my Garmin 66sr GPS and Pixel8 smart phone with Google Maps with Satellite View to help me navigate to and through the reserve in search for an optimal operating location.
I expected the trek to only be about 1 Km in with about 600 ft elevation gain. It’s all uphill, all the way. From the golf course parking lot, the hike starts out relatively easy. At first, there appears to be some semblance of a trail.
Many thanks to Tom (VA2NW) for this report on Chillycon, aka Chilicon – Vince.
Canada’s capital, Ottawa, is the home of the Ottawa Valley QRP Society. The group holds an annual weekend camp-out at the Rideau River Provincial Park (POTA CA-0365) in early fall and it’s affectionately called Chillycon (also known as Chillicon). This year’s camp-out ran from September 20th through 22nd with some folks arriving a few days earlier. It’s a low key gathering which largely consists of casual operating, socializing, sharing tips and tricks, and checking out everyone’s portable radio gear.
On Friday morning I packed up my van with radio gear, camping equipment, and enough batteries to get me through a weekend of operating and cell phone recharging. Rather than tent camping, I decided to set up a sleeping pad in my minivan. The trip from Gatineau Quebec took a little under an hour, and I arrived just after 2:00pm local time.
Entrance to Rideau Provincial Park in Kemptville Ontario Canada
I brought my new toy with me, the Venus SW-6B (metal case + internal battery configuration). In just a few minutes I was on the air with the radio, an AlexLoop Hampack antenna, American Morse Equipment Mini-B paddle, and Apple EarPod wired headphones. I made several POTA contacts before it was time to start my shift as the Straight Key Century Club’s Canadian Straight Key Month special event station VC3Y/VE3. Conditions weren’t great and there wasn’t a lot of SKCC activity in the middle of a work day, so I only made one SKCC contact that day. After SKCC hour, I joined in on the weekly K1USN Slow Speed Test (SST). I contacted a few regulars, and then I returned to POTA and made another dozen or so contacts to bring the total up to 17 QSOs.
Reading ‘The CW Way of Life’ by Chris Rutkowski by the (citronella) candlelight
After striking out at Pinckney Island National Wildlife Refuge, it was time for this POTA Babe to get back on track with my goal of 60 new valid park activations for 2024. As much as I enjoyed the historic sites and the refuge I recently visited, I needed to return to activating wildlife management areas.
Wildlife management areas (WMAs), properties set aside for conservation as well as hunting and fishing, are plentiful in the state of Georgia. Georgia has 163 WMAs and 38 are located within 75 miles of my home QTH. So it makes sense I would include those in my 60 new activations pursuit.
I set my sights on Morgan Lake WMA (US-9791) and Griffin Ridge WMA (US-3752) because they are an hour’s drive from my home and across the road from one another. Talk about convenient!
map source: worldatlas.com
Daisy and I set out early Tuesday, October 1st. During the drive, I encountered two groups of ambulances moving north on Interstate 95. At a rest stop, several EMTs from one group were taking a quick break and wore t-shirts with “Disaster Relief” on them. It was a reminder of the recent events due to Hurricane Helene.
I chose to activate Morgan Lake WMA first. According to the map, most of the property appeared to be wetlands but there is a boat landing for fisherman to access Morgan Lake. In fact, the road you use to reach the landing is built up a good 10-12 feet, I assume, to provide access even when the area experiences flooding.
boat landing and train trestle bridge
WMAs vary in their presentation. Some are nicer than others with shooting ranges and gravel roads. Morgan Lake was, frankly, on the dumpier side. This was not the place to come to commune with nature. But no matter. I was here to do an activation, so I set about getting my equipment up and running.
Map for Morgan Lake WMA. source: GA DNR
I opted for the Chelegance MC-750 today. Attempting two parks in one day meant I needed a quick and easy set up and a vertical would provide that.
Chelegance MC-750 with a train in the backgroundsetting up on the gravel parking lot
Despite poor band conditions at some of my past activations, today the bands were great! (You’d really want that on a day you are attempting back-to-back activations.) Even better, I had internet access at this park, though it was on the slow side. I could spot myself (always a plus) and it wasn’t long before calls began coming in once I was spotted on the POTA website.
Forty meters gave me 15 contacts in 20 minutes – not bad! It was good to hear so many from the southeast, some I hadn’t heard fromin a while. Given I had a second activation to attempt and I wasn’t thrilled with the site conditions at Morgan Lake, I called QRT after contact #15, packed up, and headed across the road to Griffin Ridge WMA.
QSO Map for Morgan Lake WMA (by home QTH) source: http://tools.adventureradio.de/analyzer/
Griffin Ridge is a much larger WMA than Morgan Lake. The park has two access points from the road and I chose the one farther to the north as it looked the more inviting of the two.
Map for Griffin Lake WMA. source: GA DNR
Again, given I was short on time today, I found a little area off to the side near the information kiosk by the road. If I visit this WMA again, I’ll drive further in and find a place away from the road noise.
entrance to Griffin Ridge WMA
The little place I found was somewhat shaded which Daisy and I needed given the warm weather. The day had been mostly overcast; however, I’ve learned to not trust that will persist. Nothing like being in the middle of an activation and the sun comes out from the behind the clouds to roast you.
the spot I found just perfect for parking Kai
For the North Carolina trip this past July, I purchased a Mountain Laurel Designs shelter. It was handy for my SOTA activation at Black Balsam Knob. I figured it would also be useful for POTA activations in the heat. Since I can activate next to my car for POTA, I used the front and rear wiper blades as well as the roof rack to attach three sides of the tent and the surrounding foliage to which to attach the other two. My hiking pole was not tall enough to support the center, so I used the outer rear door handle on the car to elevate the bottom of the pole to give me enough height so I could sit in my Helinox chair under the tent. It was not the best setup but good enough for today. I need to give more thought how to better support and use the tent as a shelter with my car.
Daisy relaxing
We all know band conditions fluctuate throughout the day and I hoped they would hold up for my second activation. Guess what? They did!!!
I opted for 20 meters given it was nearly noon and had 39 contacts in a little over an hour. I was thrilled! That is a “good” thing about bad band conditions. When the bands behave, you really, REALLY appreciate it.
QSO Map for Griffin Ridge WAM (by home QTH) source: http://tools.adventureradio.de/analyzer/view from under the tent at my QTH
As I packed up my equipment, I reflected on the two activations. Of the two, I would return to Griffin Ridge. The foliage and landscape reminded me of Canoochee Sandhills WMA; however, it was nicer than Canoochee and not nearly as remote, which could be considered bad or good, depending on your perspective. I would definitely set up farther inside the property to avoid the road noise unless it had rained a lot prior to my visit. The road into the property was quite sandy and soft and deep in some spots. My car might not be able to navigate those conditions after a heavy rain.
A valid activation at these two parks put me at 41 out of the 60 new park activations for which I am aiming in 2024. There are only three more months of this year so I am running out of time to reach my goal. It would be easy to accomplish my goal if life didn’t keep getting in the way, right?
There are still plenty of wildlife management areas to consider as well as properties closer to the coast as I continue my pursuit. Where will I show up next? Stay tuned…
For those interested, visit my YouTube channel for a video about this activation.
Equipment Used
[Note: All Amazon, CW Morse, ABR, Chelegance, eBay, and Radioddity links are affiliate links that support QRPer.com at no cost to you.]
Many thanks to Malen (VE6VID) – Canada’s first SOTA Double Mountain Goat – who shares the following article about his trip in Alberta, British Columbia, Washington and Montana. Malen and I work together and I can read this in his voice – including his laid-back “Oh well…” – Vince.
As a SOTA activator I challenge myself for certain goals every year. This year was SOTA completes where I chaseandactivate a summit. I had time off work so I figured, why not a short roadtrip from Alberta to BC to WA, then MT and back home? After some searching I figured 5-7 Completes in W7W land and at least 2 more in W7M lands as well as numerous points in VE7 land along the way. Was I ever wrong…..
Day One
After a trip to the post office, I departed Strathmore heading for PlumBob Mountain VE7/EK-026, a 6 point drive-up summit. Google told me 4 hrs, 42 minutes, I planned for 5 hours. It took closer to 8 hours due to traffic.
I setup my HF station (KX2, EFHW) and got 4 contacts, packed up and onto another 6 point drive-up summit, VE7/EK-040 Peak 23-35. This peak I landed 6 contacts between 20 and 40 metres, packing up as the sun started to go down. I had planned to spend the night here, so I had a late supper, made my bed and crashed for the night. Sleeping like an old over the hill baby I woke as the sun was coming up.
I awoke to this broken window on my truck cap
Day Two
However I had woken up to a broken window on my canopy. I’m not sure what happened but it was open for the night. After many curse words I made breakfast and coffee, then I relaxed slightly while Googling auto glass places in Cranbrook. After packing up and a quick phone call, I am off for repairs. Estimate was 2 hours for the repairs, it took just 1.5 hours with tinted plexiglass installed. I had planned for a 3 summit day, so I lost 1, Mount Baker, a 8 point drive-up, oh well.
The view from Eagle Hill was nice
Off to hike Eager Hill VE7/EK-048 4 points. Straight to setting up and getting the required 4 contacts before packing up and charging on with my day. After a Timmies pit stop and topping of the truck with diesel, I am off to the next summit.
As always there are lots of links within the article. Click one! Click them all! Learn all the things! ?
by Vince (VE6LK)
In August and September 2024 I was travelling around Southern Ontario for some family matters and naturally I brought my radio kit with me to squeeze in some radio therapy stops along the way. This is the report of my stop at CA-5362 Fifty Point Conservation Area.
It’s my second to last day here in Ontario and, as I wasn’t needed for other things, it was time to do a POTA rove and make the best of my last full day. I’m always on the lookout for a park that is within striking distance of wherever I am that I have not activated before and/or has not been activated before in either SSB or CW. So I planned a route to get to 9 parks and managed to get to 7 and activate 5 before other matters called for my attention. All were planned to be drive-up activations given the area and time constraints I was working within.
In my day job, I’m a Project Manager in IT, thus my style is that I plan before I arrive. You’ve already seen evidence of this with my POTA and Checklist tools that I’ve spoken about before. I usually do an in-depth study of a site before I depart, including reviewing linked webpages from the pota.app site, a satellite view and street view of the entrance on maps.google.com, and if it’s available, a 3D view of the area from maps.google.com. Let me know in the comments about the other ways you review a park before your arrival.
However I was pleasantly surprised when I found picnic tables with a view of the water at more than one of them! Balancing the good with the not-so-good, there were also some frustrations… I could not locate one of my planned stops despite driving up and down the road with two different GPSs blaring at me. My experience has shown that the smaller the park, the harder it is to find mapping, and this one from the Conservation Authority was no exception, and thus I abandoned it and drove onwards. Another site was right beside the roadway and high-voltage lines, and I didn’t have time to do a walk-in and get away from the noise floor. I always have a back-up site in my list for situations like this.
The Hamilton/Burlington/Niagara area is very pretty and, with a late summer happening around the time of a harvest moon, I didn’t mind the extra driving. For those of you who have been to Hamvention at Xenia it will be somewhat familiar as the area is full of gently rolling hills and lush green pastures. The humidity is also familiar, ugh, and one of the main reasons I moved away from this area in 1997. But nothing beats the view of sailboats out on the water; I have always found serenity in this -even knowing I get boatsick if I get on board!
The view from my “shack” at Fifty Point Conservation Area looking northwards onto Lake Ontario. On a clear day Toronto can be seen in the distance. Today wasn’t a clear day, but still quite serene.
Fifty Point is a sprawling 80 Hectare (198 acre) area located on the southern shore of Lake Ontario at Winona. It has a top-tier restaurant, multiple beaches, pavilions and 330 slips for boaters, along with a camping area. It truly is a multi-use area! You can read all about it here (.pdf warning).
After locating the day use/beach area, I found a table overlooking the lake. As it was a mid-week day, there were plenty to choose from. The view was quiet with a few boaters enjoying the beach in the small bay directly in front of me.
A slip loop style bungee holds the feedpoint in place on the picnic table. My new-to-me Tiger-Cats hat proudly on display.
I set up my 40-30-20m trapped EFHW given the solar conditions. I’m so very pleased with the performance of this antenna and it has become the one I reach for the most when activating on this trip. It is about half the length of a conventional 40m wire and is resonant on 3 bands. It has me musing about adding 17m and 15m to it… perhaps N7KOM will offer such a kit?
When I built this antenna, I tuned it so that best resonance was in the middle of the CW portion of each band, and with the feedpoint located just a few feet off the ground and then sloped upwards at the endpoint. That’s how I deployed it this time around. As you see in the prior photo, my newly acquired Fishing Butler bungee strap held the entire thing firmly in place without any movement once I set up the mast. You can get them at Fishing World in Hamilton as they ship around North America. They stock multiple sizes so a phone call may be needed as their online store shows only one size. Ask for the assorted pack.
Trapped 20-30-40m EFHW to my Goture mast and spiral rod holder
Because I never was a Boy Scout and able to know where north is based on the position of the sun and time of day or how many chirps the cricket is giving <grin>, I consulted the compass on my smartphone. I unfurled my antenna and clipped it to the stop of the mast, walked the mast out to the length of the antenna and anchored it into the ground beside some Sumac bushes. With enough repetition, I’ve gotten pretty good at estimating where the far end of my antenna will be. It comes in helpful for parking lot activation and operating out of the trunk or your vehicle with a mast supporting the far end.
For these activations, and when I can, I’ve been orienting my antenna east and west so that it radiates broadside north and south so that I can capture the most number of hunters in North America. This is a contrast to how I normally operate from Alberta when my antenna is oriented to be broadside from southeast to northwest.
The activation itself was pleasant and I was surprised with visits from QRPer.com comment regulars KQ4CW and K5KHK – and I appreciate hearing from them often! 45 minutes after arriving I was packed up and on the road to my next stop.
List of gear used for these activations:
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We do POTA (and other programs) for various reasons. On this trip, it’s a break from life’s stresses. As I reflect upon my visits with various people, I realize that I’m quite blessed to know so many friendly hams no matter where I am travelling.
72 and dit dit,
…Vince
First introduced to the magic of radio by a family member in 1969, Vince has been active in the hobby since 2002. He is an Accredited examiner in Canada and the USA, operates on almost all of the modes, and is continually working on making his CW proficiency suck less. He participates in public service events around Western Canada and is active on the air while glamping, mobile, at home or doing a POTA activation. You can hear him on the Ham Radio Workbench podcast, follow him on Twitter @VE6LK, check out his YouTube channel, and view the projects and articles on his website.
Editor note – Please enjoy this guest post from Jeff Bourgeois VE7EFF.
Today, September 6, I hope to POTA activate Inonoaklin Provincial Park CA-3626 in Southern BC, Canada, located on the shores of the Lower Arrow Lakes. On this activation, I will be using my novel experimental homebrewed Coaxial-Sleeve Dipole. The results were surprising!
We have been wanting to come back to this park since a brief visit to the area last summer. I especially wanted to come back because, at that time, it had never been activated by anyone. I had plans to activate another park in the area that day. Unfortunately, I was beaten to the draw just a few weeks ago by another ham.
The other reason I didn’t get here sooner was because it is a 3-hour drive east from our home in Kelowna, BC. 3-hours is pushing the limits of how far I’m willing to drive on daytrips, especially in mountainous areas. We rarely, if ever, do overnight trips.
We left the house very early in the morning on Sept. 6, 2024. While the countryside is very beautiful enroute to the Arrow Lakes, I kind of dread the drive as the roads are often narrow, twisty-windy and up and down steep mountain passes. At times it felt like being on a roller coaster.
This activation took a bit of research to figure out the intersection of the two given that the landscape had been dramatically altered from the time of the Battle of Beaver Dams in 1813. For example, at that time, the Welland Canal did not exist! So the town of Thorold has a park located at the west end of the battle site, and I was able to locate a monument at the east end, thus I was able to extrapolate and see that Lock 7 was in a direct path between the two. Thus I settled at Lock 7 for the activation.
A borrowed grocery cart serves as a mast support given the hard soil. Antenna runs off to the vehicle on the right.
I started off on CW, hunting other friends that were activating (shout-out to Ed W4EMB!) and then switched to SSB QRP where Steve KO4AFL found me and we had a brief chat before we both moved on. I stayed on 20m for this activation.
A quick drive-up activation means operating from the trunk
The Welland Canal is an engineering marvel that allows lake freighters to traverse the 100m/326′ height difference between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario.
Opened in 1833, it sees an average of 3,275 freighters during the shipping season which runs about 9 months of the year. With that sort of traffic, you can be reasonably assured that you’ll see one of these huge freighters on the day and time that you visit the area.
List of gear used for these activations:
Note: All Amazon links are affiliate links that support QRPer.com at no cost to you.
After my earlier activation with N2MAK, we drove down the Niagara Parkway past Niagara Falls and Niagara-on-the-Lake before arriving at the Welland Canal. It was a pleasant day and not terribly humid.
VA3ELE, Peter, with an attempt to set a new distance record on 78GHz
One last ham radio related story to the day was running into Peter (VA3ELE) about 1km from our home-away-from-home as he was attempting to set a new distance record with a friend who was well over 100km away.
Peter explained to me that his radio was 3W and the dish yielded 47dB of gain thus his ERP was around 14,000W see below. Needless to say that I did not stand in front of the dish.
[EDIT Sept 26] with gracious thanks to the math wizardry of David VE7EZM, the result of 47dB of gain with 3W of input is approximately 150,356W ERP.
All in all, labour day 2024 was full of beautiful scenery and lots of Ham Radio – exactly how a vacation day should be in my books.
72 and dit dit,
…Vince
First introduced to the magic of radio by a family member in 1969, Vince has been active in the hobby since 2002. He is an Accredited examiner in Canada and the USA, operates on almost all of the modes, and is continually working on making his CW proficiency suck less. He participates in public service events around Western Canada and is active on the air while glamping, mobile, at home or doing a POTA activation. You can hear him on the Ham Radio Workbench podcast, follow him on Twitter @VE6LK, check out his YouTube channel, and view the projects and articles on his website.
For the second activation, I wanted to take Vlado to a site I’ve activated numerous times—one of my favorites—that he had yet to visit:
Table Rock State Fish Hatchery (US-8012)
We arrived on-site around 11:00 AM and, no surprise, had the place to ourselves. Honestly, I was hoping we’d see the three dogs that often pop by for a visit, but I believe they were on vacation with everyone else!
We both figured 20 meters would be our bread-and-butter band for this activation. More importantly, our transceiver was a 20-meter monoband (more on that below), so I deployed my new 20-meter end-fed half-wave antenna.
This particular EFHW is built on a transformer by Walter (NE4TN) at TennTennas.
TennTennas 49:1 QRP Transformer
I may have mentioned before that Walter gave me this little 49:1 transformer at Hamvention this year when I met him in person. Walter is one of my top hunters in POTA, and I can often count on hearing his call when I’m on 40 meters.
Walter handed me this little transformer as a thank you, with no obligation to promote it—in fact, he didn’t even tell me where they could be purchased.
But I’m a sucker for home-grown mom-and-pop ham radio businesses, so of course, I’m going to plug it! He sells these on eBay (partnership link) for $39 each as a small side business. Not a bad price for a solid little 49:1!
As I mentioned, I trimmed this one for 20 meters, but I’ll likely make it a linked antenna with 30 and/or 40 meters as well someday.
Vlado’s Homebrew Transceiver
I was also excited that Vlado brought along his homebrew 20-meter QRP transceiver.
I had seen this radio in his shack during various stages of development, but I had never had an opportunity to use it in the field.
I’m not sure if Vlado had used it for a POTA activation yet, in fact.
His little transceiver is super simple but sports proper filtering, an OLED display, and, despite the large battery he connected to it, has modest power requirements.
He built it into an old Kenwood VHF radio chassis he found at a hamfest. I’ve been with Vlado before when he’s hunted for chassis for his various homebrew projects. The OM is always building or repairing something in his shack.
We were really looking forward to putting this little transceiver on the air!
Gear
Note: All Amazon, CW Morse, ABR, Chelegance, eBay, and Radioddity links are affiliate links that support QRPer.com at no cost to you.
Many thanks to Jeff (VE7EFF) who shares the following guest post:
2.5 km Trek into Wrinkly Face Provincial Park, BC, CA-4307
by Jeff (VE7EFF)
My goal this summer is to do more backpacked-in POTA activations. This is my 3rd POTA outing over the past week. Being in Canada, I don’t have much time left this season to do this before the weather turns too wet, cold or snowy for my liking.
I attempted to activate Wrinkly Face Provincial Park, CA-4307 last summer. However, I couldn’t get there because the FSR forestry service road was washed out about halfway to the park. My Subaru Forester is an amazing SUV on outback FSR roads, but this washout was too much to even attempt.
So, this year I decided to attempt to hike to the park on foot which turned out to be a 2.5 km trek with about 653 ft elevation gain. As always, my wife Alexis (VE7LXE) is my travel companion.
Our trailhead starts about an hour’s drive north of Kelowna, BC which is where we live. We park on the side of a gravel road near the trailhead. We will be following a 2.5 km segment of the Okanagan High Rim Trail, which will take us to our destination in the middle of Wrinkly Face Provincial Park.
We aren’t sure exactly where the trail starts from here. But just around the corner ahead of the car, is an adjoining FSR road. Here we find a sign and map of the Okanagan High Rim Trail (OHRT).
A closer look at the sign shows the OHRT trail starts near the sign. I have circled our starting point and ending point on the map photo, marked in yellow. (We ended up setting down about midway in Wrinkly Face Prov. Park.) So, off we go.
We found the trail!
Apparently, there was a heavy rain downpour early this morning. So, the trail is quite soggy and damp for most of the trek up. It’s also feeling quite cold this morning. We actually felt the need to put gloves on.
The beginning of the trail is a steady uphill trod. However, it also crosses a couple of FSR roads, which gives us some flat areas to walk on. While most of the trail is well marked with small markers, there were a few areas where we got off track for a short distance and had to backtrack. There are also free-range cows up here and they tend to create their own network of trails which often crisscross the OHRT trail, which causes periodic confusion as to which one for us to follow.
Thank goodness, I pre-plan these trips on my Garmin GPS and Google Maps to help with navigation.
I don’t think the OHRT trail is very heavily traveled. In some areas, the pathway is almost overgrown with vegetation.
Along with overgrown vegetation, fallen trees can also create an occasional obstacle. Often, the trail doesn’t amount to much more than a game trail.
Finally, some open views to the south! This could be a viable operating area. One problem though – we haven’t crossed the park boundary yet. Good news – the sky is starting to clear! Onwards and upwards…
Making good progress. We are now crossing into the park boundary.
Welcome to Wrinkly Face Provincial Park, CA-3407. You won’t find any parking stalls, camp sites, picnic tables, or outhouses here. But what I do hope to find here is… POTA heaven!
After trekking about halfway into the park, we finally came across an open meadow. Looks like this could be our POTA ops spot. In the far distance is a glimpse of Kelowna and part of Lake Okanagan.
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