Winter is a great time of the year for SOTA activations for those who like snow. This motivated four of us to make a dash for LA/ST-134 Ølshavden on Sunday January 5th. We tried to find a suitable compromise so that the ascent would not be too steep for mountain skis but that the descent would be steep enough for snowboarding. In search of such a compromise, we ended up with a summit familiar from our expedition there last year.
After a modest morning participation in NRAU-Baltic SSB, we packed the equipment and departed. After an hour of driving, we found that the parking space we borrowed last year was occupied this year. This led us 500 m down the road, to what turned out to be an acceptable alternative starting point.
After a quick penalty round to retrieve a forgotten mast, we were on our way. We could follow some quite good snowmobile tracks in the beginning. They ended by the cabin of their creators, which we got a chance to greet this year as they were sitting outside. After that we followed the path we took down from the summit last year.
Two of us were on mountain skis, one on heavy randonee skis and one ascended on snowshoes and descended on snowboard. This would, in theory, mean that we should keep a quite different pace and prefer different kinds of paths, but that was a surprisingly small problem for the ascent.
Almost at the top, the short ski skins of both LB5DH and Sara gave in at the same time. Fortunately, it was so close to the top that they just walked up on their boots. Well up, we found a nice spot with shelter from the slight wind that was there.
We brought our 20m and 15m verticals for our 6m glass fiber mast, but when we got there we found that we had mixed up our antennas. We had the 20m radials, but a 10m element instead of the needed one. Naturally, we opted to use the 15m antenna instead. That turned out to work just fine, and the conditions were great. After LB5DH and LB0CJ formally activated the summit, our two recruits, Emma and Sara, got a QSO each before we headed down again.
The days in the winter are very short, and the dusk was looming by the time we were ready to descend. We did bring headlamps, but it is more convenient to ski down without them. We got quite far without needing artificial illumination, all the way to the snowmobile track. In retrospect, we can conclude that this decent did not satisfy the desired compromise for our ideal summit. There were several places that were not steep enough for the snowboard, so Emma had to use her ski poles.
We reached the road again and located our very cold car. The whole day had been cold, down to -14 °C, but we still liked the activation. Thanks for the trip to LB0CJ, LB5DH, Sara and Emma!
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