ALL NIGHT T-HUNT

April 24, 2010

Report from WB6JPI

 

It was a cloudy but not too cold day. Andy Wist, WC9W, my Son-law, was drug along on a fine day of riding shotgun and having almost no signal.

 

It started at 7AM, well actually 7:15 as we were running a might late, we left our nice house of many splendor toys and set out for the start point by way of Kings. We stayed on schedule for most of the rest of the day. Andy munched an Hawaiian omelet while I consumed an English muffin and off to meet with Deryl at the start point. Soon we were joined by Bob, Dave, Scott and Jack and promptly at 10AM a signal appeared..

 

The GPS Topo/overlay map computer failed to come alive and we had some problems later on in figuring out just where we were. We had other GPSs but had trouble relating to the paper maps and what we could see.

 

We all got a bearing of around 32 degrees and since that pointed at Don’s house and Mt Wilson, a goodly chunk of the Angeles Forrest, Rainbow Canyon and Death Valley we all knew just where to go. Now Don had announced that the hunt was to be relatively easy and that when you found the transmitter there were additional instructions at to extracurricular activities that would require a camera, compass and yardstick. The signal was unwavering and strong so it shouldn’t be too far away

 

We pondered where to go, polled the crowd and no one seemed to know or was willing to tell and we had no clues other than the above.  We chose to take the western route up the 405 and see if it was at Don’s house or Mt Wilson before getting too committed to getting to Palmdale. We suspected that hwy 2 over the Angeles Forest was closed and so away we went.

 

Before we got to the 405 we changed our mind and decided to go up Hwy 2 anyway so we went up the 110 FWY to the 5 Fwy to the 2 FWY to find that HWY 2 was closed. We had some bearings (on SSB) along the way that sort of pointed more easterly than 32 degrees so it make some sense to try rte 2. We plowed west on the 210 Fwy to the 5 to the 14 and on to the magical vista point overlooking lake Palmdale. Got bearings here of 45 degrees so with some concern we went to Mojave with almost no signal. We went east on 58 and the signal on T3 picked up and now we had a signal of T2 and another one sometimes. All pointed about the same place, 32 degrees. We made our second mistake and headed up 395 for about 10 miles and now T2&3 were about east so we grabbed a dirt road and that was that. For the next few hours we went east on this unnamed dirt road. 

 

We got to Black mountain and no question that T2 and T3 were on the west side of that mountain. However, they were not that strong and our maps showed that there was no access to the peak or even near the top as the mountain was mostly a reserve of some kind. So I decided (Andy was innocent here) to go around Black mountain over to the Opal Mountain side and go north on that side. Mistake.

 

We went up a riverbed for a few miles and then continued into the area between Black mountain and Opal Mountain. We were of Opal Mountain road but just where we were on that road is a mystery. As we went up the riverbed T3/T2 became quite weak and finally went away and were replaced with a T9 that was getting stronger and was straight ahead. We went by a talking T yakking about some lava rock and that it was not a rock. But it was west down a road?? we didn’t want to visit toward a gap in the western ridge.

 

We eventually came to the top of a hill and the road plunged about 200 ft in about 500 ft and we had a good view of the little valley below and it was 6 PM or so. T9 was 30 dB of attenuator and pointed at the next ridge some 5 miles away. Our maps didn’t show any way out if we proceeded and we would have to get out on the roads we used to get in. Coupled with the suspicion we didn’t really know just where we were, the impending darkness and the 20 miles of dirt to get out from here and I was tired, we decided to call it quits. We called Don and told him we were going home.

 

Later we found out we were about 500 ft from the Black Canyon Road where all things were (at the bottom of the hill we were on) and that it was a better way out. Wish we had the Topo computer going as it even had the petroglyphs marked. (found a broken power connector…)