Brundage Mountain is short, but punchy. Don't let the distance to summit fool you. It goes from a road to a double track that fades into the brush. We mostly followed the gps track from K7MK. His track yields a good spot to cross the creek and keeps you out of the thickest brush. Where we deviated was on dealing with the block below the summit. We opted for climbers right on the ascent and climbers left on the descent. The right side is more rocky and feels like a stairmaster. The left side is more dirt, so more slipping. Pick your poison I suppose, both are steep.
Our ascent put us south of summit proper, so we hiked along the ridge to find the two different USGS markers and the summit register. After signing the register, I got my mast and Rollup J-Pole in the air. No luck on VHF though. I called CQ for 15 minutes. Even with a spot out on 146.52 and LOS into McCall, had no takers.
My MTR saved the day. I set up HF and got to calling CQ. A bad alert had RBN spot me on the wrong summit: a reminder to double check alerts you may have made in advance when deciding last minute plans. I was able to self spot, but still, my apologies to chasers for the confusion. I got 4 QSOs on 40m and 3 QSOs on 30m, including my first S2S CW contacts! Very stoked about that.
Our little dog was waiting for us in the car, so we didn't wait around much longer on the summit. Right as I finished packing up I got a message from WU7H that he was on summit and wanted to S2S. Dang it!
Downhill is easier than uphill, but it is still a steep hike. Roscoe did great, but he was definitely a tuckered out pup after this one. We drove to Goose Lake afterwards to cool off. He didn't even want to get out of the car, thinking that there was another hike in store! The water at Goose Lake was nice and worth the drive.
If you are looking to do a bigger day, Granite Mountain (W7I/SR-038) and W7I/SR-069 are nearby and begging for a double.
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