An activation long overdue for me. I did hiked on Kis-Királykő (Piatra Mică) well before engaging in HAM/SOTA activities, so always fancied about going back there since I started doing SOTA. The view from the summit is extraordinary and despite being connected to the Királykő (Piatra Craiului - a.k.a. King's Rock) it is easier to access then the main ridge (which by the way offers a great panorama).
As said it is long overdue, I had already many plans to activate it, but all of them was foiled by some other things I had to do. A late autumn day brought finally the long awaited activation, when fully prepared and well equipped (this time I didn't forget to take with me any crucial gizmo) together with YO6HXO we started out to take down the summit.
After a short drive to Zernyest (Zărnești), and then to the well of Botorog, left behind the car and started out the long and windy trail in the fall colored woods.
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| YO6HXO looking for the path covered leafs |
The first section of the trail, following the yellow stripe is a 2 hour continuous ascent in the woods, ending in a nice clearing with good view to the Királykő (well if it's not covered in clouds or fog)
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| The rising fog revealing the main ridge |
From there it continues fairly straight to the Curmătura hut, our first stop before taking on the summit.
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| Curmătura |
After a little break at the hut, another ascent follows on the blue circle path (there is also red stripe and yellow stripe) up the the Hasadék (Crăpăturii) saddle, the col between the proper and the small Királykő.
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| Looking out to the north towards the Persány mountains through the "Crack" valley |
More serious adventurer take a left turn here with some really tough cliffs to climb, and the lazy ones like me take a right turn to follow the blue circle towards the Kis-Királykő
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| This is just the first portion of climbing |
Of course some climbing is needed also here, but is actually not that hard, only a few tricky portions, but those have steel cables helping these sunday tourists
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| YO6HXO demonstrating his rock-climbing abilities |
Finally after about 45 minutes we were up to the summit an could start erecting the antenna (good old fishpole) and getting to business
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| Putting together the HF equipment (and some ragchewing on VHF in the meanwhile) |
Of course we didn't forget to admire the gorgeous panorama while we were at there.
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| YO6HXO |
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| YO6PIB |
I had a good hour before the Ukrainian contest begun killing off any further activity. Still it get 64 QSO-s, with some regular guys like N1EU (I'm still wondering how this guy can pick us out ), and also some new ones.
The beginning of the contest was not just throwing off us from the classic bands, but also marked that it's about time to leave if we want to get down before dusk. Well the getting down part in my opinion is harder then the getting up part (especially on knees), the path down (we continued towards the other side) is very steep down to the same clearing I was talking about earlier. Anyway we were right in time down at the cars before sunset ending a very pleasant autumn day out in the nature.
For the end here are some panoramas from the summit (they are also SOTA summits so maybe sometimes ... to be continued)
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| Királykő |
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| Bucsecs |
Some more photos
here.
