This peak is a short drive away from the Rosamond Hills, which I had just climbed. I approached this peak from the south, driving up 80th Street as far as I was able. I ended up parking at the base of the tower. From here it is a straightforward walk up the hill.
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| Part way up. |
It seems as though 80th Street just continues straight up. This makes following the trail simple, but also makes it incredibly steep. I could see that it would be steep, and it was. As I was going up, I also started to dread coming back down since it was so steep. I would stop occasionally and turn around to watch the cars driving around the race track. Not the best soundtrack for a hike. Eventually I made it up to the ridge, where there was a short walk over to the high point.
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| Road running along the ridge. |
After tagging the summit I dropped a little to get out of the wind. However, I ran into a problem that there were no bushes for holding up the pole. I picked the biggest one, then spent a few minutes building a small cairn to hold the base of the pole. It worked, but not very well. I didn't spend much time on HF, since the pole would fall over every few minutes. Bring stakes if you do this peak. I did have a nice QSO with a guy on 2m in Rosamond. We chatted until I started getting cold, when I packed up and headed down.
The trip down was as bad as I thought it would be. Very unpleasant going down such a steep, slippery slope. I managed to get back to the car without falling, where I drove over to the final summit of the day.
Trailhead: From Rosamond Blvd, drive up 80th Street as far as you can.
Website: SOTA Site.
Maps: AA6XA SOTA Hikes map.
Route: Follow the road up to the ridge, turn left and take the road to the summit.
Red Tape: None.
Video: ham_bitious YouTube
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