Summit Information:
Summit Name: Sargent Mountain, W1/DI-003
Location: Acadia National Park
Lat/Long: 44° 20′ 34.008” N/68° 16′ 24.96” W
Date: May 20th, 2020
Summit Information:
Points: 1
County: Hancock County
Grid: FN54ui
Wx: 62 degrees, SE 10 kts
Difficulty
Views
Solitude
On a Scale of 1 to 5
Radio Gear:
Radio
Antenna
Arrow Antena
Power
HT
Watts
On The Air:
Number of QSO's
20
Spotting
Bands
2m, 20m
DX Worked
Cananda, Spain
Logs Uploaded
Mode
This was the final hike (#7) of the my 7 days of SOTA activations. The final hike was Sargent Mountain. I had attempted this hike via the Giant Slide trail over the weekend and due to the rain had failed. This time I waited for a good weather window and decided to climb via the Maple Spring Trail. The trail starts out pretty flat and passes a carriage trail. It then starts to follow a river that has multiple waterfalls and the trail crosses back and forth over the stream.
One interesting thing about this trail was the lack of blue blazes for navigation. The path was pretty worn and pretty easy to follow if you followed your instincts. This differened from the other Acadia NP trails that were better blazed. For some this might be difficult. This is also a good trail to do when there hasn’t been a lot of water. As far steepness, it suprisingly a pretty mild grade. It wasn’t till the top that it started to get steep.
The final leg of the trail is exposed and offers some really nice views. Once I reached the summit following cairns, I was the only person around.
I started out with 2m VHF using my Arrow antenna and was able to make a few contacts including N1WMR who I had spoken to on another summit. I somehow managed to mangle his call both times, sorry Andrew! While I was calling CQ SOTA, I noticied a guy who had arrived at the summit giving me a pretty hard look over. Apparently he was a park ranger and was pretty curious as to what I was up to. After a lot of explanation (from a distance) he was appeased and went on his way. He mentioned that there were snowy owls that often flew aroung Sargent mountain. That would been a cool sight to see.
I started out on 20 meters and got a nice pileup going. One of the calls was VE3LD which was unusual. Considering how close I was to the Canadian border (+3 hours) you would think that I would hear more Canadian stations while operating in Maine, which has not been the case (on 40m, etc). I did snag some some Espana stations which is always fun.
I then tried 30 and 40 meters and had some issues with my Packtenna tuning up properly on 40m. I tried moving around the band but the issue persisited. I need to take another look and the antenna and see what is going on. As a result there ended up being several spots that quickly changed. Sorry for any confusion on that. After an hour or so I wrapped it up and headed back to the car. Overall, Sargent was a good hike and excellent radio activation.
