On Friday, April 28, 2023, the clouds lifted and I was eager to fit in a brisk hike.
We’d had a few days of wet weather and, in fact, the previous day I performed a POTA activation with my entire station and antenna under the roof of a picnic shelter.
I was visiting my parents and didn’t want to venture too far afield, but still wanted to fit in a good summit activation. The goal was to stretch my legs and to test my Mystery Ranch Scree 32 backpack. Before taking this pack on a difficult summit hike, I thought it might make sense to check the pack’s suspension and fit with it loaded down a bit heavier than I normally would.
This would actually be my second SOTA activation with the Scree 32 pack (here’s the first) but on that first hike, the pack was so light, I barely noticed it was on my back.
Hibriten Mountain (W4C/EM-093)
Hibriten was an easy choice for the day. It’s only a 25 minute drive from my parents’ home and the trail has modest elevation change over the 5.6 mile round trip hike.
The trail is basically a wide, gravel access road for the crews who maintain the communication towers on Hibriten’s summit.
I remembered from my previous activation of Hibriten that the hike was very pleasant.
It certainly was that Friday!
It wasn’t a terribly hot day, but it was very humid as the sun burned off all of the rain we’d received over previous days.
I hiked at a brisk clip to make the most of my workout and, if I’m being honest, I was pretty darn happy to see the summit. Continue reading SOTA on Hibriten Mountain: Testing my new backpack and working a little QRP DX!
