After activating the nearby Peak 4140 I drove up the rest of the hill to get Strawberry Peak. This peak has a paved road to the top with an active fire lookout. The gates were open when I arrived, and I was able to drive to the summit. There is a small parking area on top.
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| View from the fire lookout. |
There were two volunteers in the fire lookout, and it was open to the public. I walked up and talked to the volunteers for a bit. If there weren't so many cell towers at the same height it would've been a great view. The tower was extremely similar to the one on Los Pinos Mountain down near San Diego. There was a picnic table at the base with space to put up an antenna, so I took advantage of it.
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| Set up on HF. |
I did all three HF bands, and got more contacts than earlier on 4140. There was good cell service. I then went back up to the balcony of the tower to do 2m. I was glad to have the SOTABeams BPF so I wasn't deaf. It turns out one of the volunteers was a ham as well, so we chatted a bit about SOTA.
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| Base of the tower, parking lot behind. |
I could've stayed and chatted and enjoyed the view, but I still had a long drive to the desert, so reluctantly I packed up and drove down to the joshua trees.
Trailhead: End of Strawberry Lookout Road.
Website: SOTA Site.
Maps: AA6XA SOTA Hikes map.
Route: Drive to the the summit.
Red Tape: None. I did VHF from the balcony of the tower.
Video: ham_bitious YouTube
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