SOTA Cycling Week: Mt. Bishop

Every year Richard (G3CWI) runs an informal SOTA Cycling Week and invites participants to celebrate the hobby by using their bicycles on some or all of the approach to activate a summit.  This year I happened to have some time off during the event so I decided to take a shot at an un-activated summit in North Vancouver I had been eyeing up for some time.

Mt. Bishop is the northernmost peak in Mt. Seymour Provincial Park and represents a typical, if somewhat more strenuous, hiking experience in the North Shore Mountains of Vancouver.   The summit was first climbed from the East via Indian Arm by a BCMC party in 1909, though modern access is now found from the West in the Lower Seymour Conservation Reserve and, less commonly, from the South via Mt. Seymour and Mt. Elsay.  It is not a particularly well-traveled route, though the trail is maintained and well flagged by North Shore Search and Rescue.

There are several ways to reach the base of the Mt. Bishop trail, including various river crossings and boat trips, but in the spirit of the event I chose to approach the trailhead by bicycle along the Seymour Valley Trail, crossing the Seymour River near the fish hatchery at the South end of Seymour Lake.

The cycling trail is quite pleasant, following the valley bottom before breaking out near the river.  Once I was across the bridge a short climb brought me to Spur Road 4 and the end of the cycling portion of the approach.  From there the trail the trail goes steeply up towards the Vicar Lakes and is not bike friendly.

Those familiar with North Shore trails will not be surprised by the 35% grade and sections of scrambling with fixed ropes that are the hallmark of most ascents in North Vancouver.  For others it can be quite a shock to find such steep hiking and borderline 3^rd class terrain below treeline.   This particular trail is not nearly as popular as routes like the Grouse Grind or Mt. Seymour, where you can expect lineups at the steeper parts, and I had the entire mountain to myself.  A few footprints and flagging tape were the only evidence that anyone had been up there in the last six months.

It took me 4 hours of climbing to reach the summit.  The final 200m above the Vicar Lakes breaks out into a nice alpine setting with a small creek to pick up water.  There are several variations to the summit and there’s a bit of something for everybody.  I opted to scramble up the granite blocks on the North ridge to the top instead of hiking up the lower angled West Ridge (because seriously, where’s the fun?)

The summit is relatively flat and there are some Krummholz (small trees) to use as antenna supports.  I also used an old avalanche probe to prop up one end.  My antenna was a 20m dipole with a SOTABEAMS pico balun and 5m of RG-174 coax.  This was my first time using this antenna and I found that some #22 AWG silicone coated wire fit very well in the PCB holes.  The silicone covered wire is fantastic to work with and is very resistant to kinking.  It should also handle much better in freezing temperatures.  Of course, I’d forgotten my soldering iron in Revelstoke so I had to make do with wrapping some bare wire around the PCB to ensure an electrical connection.  There were no operational issues and the simple SWR meter on my FT-817 didn’t show any bars.  This antenna weighs less than 1/3 of my old setup, which was 7.5m of RG-58 and some #14 AWG wire, and will undoubtedly be coming along for future activations.

Despite poor band conditions I was able to pick up 6 HF contacts on 20m SSB, which is the most HF activity I’ve ever had.  On previous activations I had run into low audio issues with the MH-31 microphone that comes with the FT-817.  Even after cranking up the mic gain to 100 I was barely audible.  For this attempt I upgraded to a powered electret microphone and was finally being heard.  It was exciting to finally get my HF setup working properly and I’m looking forward to using it more in the future.  Self-spotting was essential to being successful, though I’ll need to find an alternate way of being spotted on summits without cellular coverage.  It’s good motivation to keep practicing CW, though, so eventually I’ll be able to break away from my dependency on phone modes.

The trip back down was fairly uneventful and I was able to get back to my bike in about 2 hours and then another hour to bike back to the car.  It was a bit of a toss-up leaving my baby hidden in the ferns, but it remained unmolested and there were some fun downhill sections on the ride home.  Overall a very successful SOTA Cycling Week excursion.  I’ll probably wind up biking again when I head up to Cypress Peak (VE7/SL-023) this weekend.