One Day In December

 Summits-on-the-Air or SOTA  is an award scheme for radio amateurs that encourages portable operation in mountainous areas. SOTA has been carefully designed to make participation possible for all Radio Amateurs and Shortwave Listeners - this is not just for mountaineers! There are awards for activators (those who ascend to the summits) and chasers (who either operate from home, a local hilltop or are even Activators on other summits).

SOTA is fully operational in nearly a hundred countries across the world. Each country has its own Association which defines the recognized SOTA summits within that Association. Each summit earns the activators and chasers a score which is related to the height of the summit. Certificates are available for various scores, leading to the prestigious "Mountain Goat" and "Shack Sloth" trophies. An Honor Roll for Activators and Chasers is maintained at the SOTA online database.

"Activating" a peak via four contacts grants the user a specified number of points. Based on the SOTA region, bonus points may be offered for winter operators. This was my quest on Friday, Dec 3rd.

My plan was to activate four primary peaks along the Skyline Drive. I then planned to skip over two peaks--Stony Man and Hawksbill Mtn--as I've previously activated these peaks. Once activating Hazeltop Mtn farther to the south, I planned to backtrack and pick up the bonus points only for Hawksbill and Stony Mtn if I had enough time and energy.

Finally got over 100 total SOTA points. My activator statistics are  here .

Times: I left 60 minutes for activation. This was a huge buffer as I normally made all my required contacts on CW within 15 min.

Gear/packing:

• Wore track pants, t-shirt, fleece jacket and hat. I pulled out the rain jacket several times to keep the wind off of me. Used my woobie/poncho liner draped over my legs to stay warm during the first activations. Used my old shooting gloves most of the time. They were great with my trekking poles, but not so good on the Morse code paddle. Heavier gloves ere not helpful there either. Looking for something thin and grippy.... Wouldn't make a change on radio gear. At 5W of CW operating, my LiPo battery lasted the entire day. All my gear is documented in  this Storymap .
• Food. Packed a bunch of mean sandwiches that I ate on two Ramen breaks. Not sure how to improve on this.