Three Wild Turkey Winners!  On a springtime outing to the Spokane, Washington region, we activated three (3) SOTA Summits in the mountains north of the City of Spokane.  The reference to Wild Turkeys is on account of seeing numerous of the large wild birds that almost became the National Symbol of USA.  See: http://www.nwf.org/News-and-Magazines/National-Wildlife/Birds/Archives/2007/Americas-First-Bird-Controversy.aspx .  We chose this area, as there were several SOTA Summits that were easily accessible from the 2 alpine ski resorts north of Spokane: Mount Spokane Ski and Snowboard Park and 49 Degrees North Mountain Resort.  This is report 1 of 3, detailing the Activation of Mount Spokane.

Mount Spokane is inside the Mount Spokane State Park, a 13,919-acre camping park in the Selkirk Mountains. The view at the top of the 5,883-foot elevation includes surrounding states and Canada. The forested park features stands of old-growth timber and granite rock outcroppings. In winter, the park receives 300 inches of snow.  Besides the Alpine Ski resort, there is a great system of trails and huts for X-C skiing, as well as year round hiking.  To access the park by car for day use requires a Discover Pass.  For more on this wonderful treasure of the Spokane area see: http://parks.state.wa.us/549/Mount-Spokane . Also see: http://www.mountspokane.org/ .

In the W7W SOTA Summits List and on SOTA Maps, Mount Spokane is shown as Jump Off Joe Mountain.  I have done some research, and find absolutely no justification for calling Mount Spokane this name.  See: http://www.summitpost.org/mount-spokane/252402 . Therefore I am going to stick with the commonly accepted name of Mount Spokane.  The mountain crowns a ski resort that is a mere 26 miles northeast of where we were staying in the Spokane Valley.  It took about 45 minutes to reach the ski area parking lot, which is at 4,200 feet elevation, 1,683 feet elevation directly below the summit.  Our route followed the “Ego Flats”, “Cat Track”, “Northwest Passage” (green), “Skookum” and “Northwest Passage” (blue) ski runs to the summit area.  It was approximately 2.25 miles each way.  See: http://www.mtspokane.com/core/files/mtspokane/uploads/images/12401-TrailMap13-14PRINT_UpdatedLIST.jpg . There was very little snow left on the mountain, most of it being on the upper slopes facing north.  See photos.

Our route ended at Vista House, a splendid piece of stonework used as a warming hut / vista point.  See Photos.  We were there alone, and set up radio shop on a picnic table someone had moved from the inside of Vista House to the outside summit area.  The small stunted evergreens in the summit area shielded us from the breeze as we proceeded with the Activation.  The road to the summit, usually open by June, was still closed, meaning that on this date, the only way to the summit area was by trail, or up the ski slopes.  There are substantial radio facilities atop Mount Spokane, and we were happy to be about 500 feet from them.  I did not encounter any RF effects on my signals on 2M FM or 15M or 40M SSB, which were the bands I used for contacts.  I made 8 contacts in about 48 minutes of operating.  We would have stayed longer to enjoy the sunny and view laden operating environment, but had a second SOTA objective in mind, and so cut the activation short.  Our round trip time was about 3:55 hours.

I worked: W6FHZ; KF7WMM; WA7TC; VE6WSD; KD5TJN; K6OJ – on 40M, W8PW on 15M and N7KAM on 2M FM.  Thank you to all the chasers and those I worked!