18 Feb 2017, SOTA on YO/EC-542 "Alunisul"

Essential summit info (for activators)

Target summit: YO/EC-542 "Alunisul" - http://www.sota.org.uk/Summit/YO/EC-542
Our Route: Easy to moderate trail and gradient. Short, about 2.4 km from bottom to top. Trail starts at the top of the Puzdra pass, on a dirt road. It gets steeper in the midsection. We spotted bear tracks. GPS recorded track here: http://www.wandermap.net/en/route/3508205-alunisul-yoec-542-gps/​ .
Summit conditions: Forested, but there's a glade very near, in the SOTA activity radius.

---

Activity report

We've left the town quite late, at around 10:30 local time. In lower areas it was raining. Gloomy all around. As we got closer to the summit the rain turned to light snow, which was better. Once on foot, we took a tourist path from the Puzdra pass. The trail is marked by a red band, which we followed for some time before "losing" it and then we had to climb directly on a steep, icy incline.  We've found some bear tracks in the snow, with the claw marks clearly visible. Snow conditions were widely variable. In some areas the snow was waist deep, but with a crust that held our weight, while in other areas (shaded), the crust was not present. Because of the "heat waves", snow melted completely in some areas, but then the water turned to ice, which was hidden well by a layer of vegetation.

On the summit things went pretty well. First we made a few contacts in 2m and in 70cm, then we switched to 17m and later to 20m. Our hiking buddies made a nice fire and we had a quick snack and some tea (made from snow). This day, despite mediocre propagation and some massive QRM, was the most prolific QSO-wise. We've made more than 100 contacts between us in an activation that spanned almost 2 hours (with some breaks for changing the antennas, ops and stuff). On the way back we chose another route which was slightly better than the one we took on the ascent (the GPS track shows this return trail).

A big thanks to all chasers and to our tea-making buddies!