Thursday, August 22, 2024

W6/ND-378 Sheep Mountain

Our second night in the Whites was a lot nicer than the first. The weather in the afternoon and evening was sunny, and there was no rain. From our campsite at the trailhead we had excellent views of the area. We could see White Mountain Peak, the bristlecone pine forest was below us, and the lower peaks were spread out to the south.
Sunrise over the trailhead.

We woke up early again, and started up the hill at dawn. It was chilly, but not too windy. On the way up we just went straight up the hill to the top of the summit by the road. From there it was obvious we could just walk along the wide ridge connecting the two peaks. 
Looking at the summit.

It was a quick walk. The talus was large and easy to traverse, and we were fresh from a good night's sleep. As we got to the summit we were treated to the sun rising on the Sierra across the valley. We could even see the giant triangular shadow of our mountain. It was worth the early start.
Sierra Sunrise

We put up the antenna and got on the air. There was cell service, and good views to Bishop. We did HF and VHF, getting contacts on all the bands we tried. Once we were done, Rex and Saurabh went down the hill, and chased me on 2m CW. Always fun to get weak signal VHF contacts, and doubly fun with the Quansheng.
Looking back at the subpeak.

On the way back we decided to go around the left (north) side of the peak we had gone over on the way up. This saved us some climbing. It was a good route, that side of the hill is not very steep, at least at the elevation of the col. The final descent was steep, but there was no way to avoid that. 

 Trailhead: White Mountain Road, east of the summit. There is a large pullout marked with some rocks here.
Website: SOTA Site.
Route: Go up towards the sub-peak, then sidehill around the north side to the col. Straight up from there.
Red Tape: None.
Video: Coming Soon!

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