Planning a activation is always a challenge, no matter how much you read up about the access to the summit and what you find when you start you assent to the summit could be two different scenarios, this was the case on Friday morning the 4th October, Adele and I set off for Harrismith, with objective to fetch may jacket which we left at a guest house there, this would also give us the opportunity for a late afternoon activation, the summit we choose was Mt Paul ZS/FS-012 which was in the area, driving up to the number of towers which are located on top of the lower part of the summit was easy, although a 4×4 is recommended as the concert road is very steep, from where you park you need to climb a short distance up then make your way around the north side of the mountain where you come to a very suspect looking steel ladder which takes you to the top of Mt Paul.
The 40 M Band conditions were very good, this enable us to make 13 contacts in just on 50 min of operating, thanks again to our loyal chasers who are always there for us, once the bands went quite Adele took a few pic”s of the surrounding area before we started back to overnight staying place, we discussed a Saturday morning activation before we start our journey back home, from the top of Mt Paul we see that Ntabazwe was burning, looking at the smoke coming off the mountain the question was would we be able to go into the Nature Reserve which gives you access to Donkey Pass which take you to the top of Ntabazwe (Platberg), later that evening we decided on Ntabazwe ZS/FS-024 which is the old Plateberg, our planned activation time was for 07.30UTC .
As can be seen the fire was moving towards us
Saturday morning 05.00 UTC we set out for the Nature Reserve and Donkey Pass. when we reached the top of the pass we could see the fire, burning about a 1,5 k/m to the North of where we going to set up our station, between us and the fire was the access concrete road leading up to the communication towers on the top, we choose a place between the road and a section which had burn’t the previous day, while setting up the station we kept our eyes on the fire, before we had made our first contact the fire had crossed the road and was moving in the direction of our vehicle, we made our required number of contacts,which was mostly Div3, by this time we were forced to break station, the only safe place for the vehicle was in a area which had already burnt, with Adele walking in front of me, looking for a place where we could turn in between the rocks,we found a safe place, we waited for the fire and smoke to pass, then set off down the mountain. what we did realize was just how fast a fire can catch up to you
Until next time stay safe on the mountains
Sid ZS5AYC & Adele ZS5APT