To round off my foggy day of winter activations, I drove to Buchanan State Forest. This peak had only been activated by Jody K3JZD, so it was time to give it love from another activator. This is an easy drive-on with two options for parking points off the side of the road. There is rocky soil that was easy to get a ground stake into to hold up my mast. There are also many trees.
At this point in the afternoon, the fog had let up a bit. Nobody drove by the entire time I was on the summit. I stuck around for a while, walking along the bands: 40m, 60m, 30m, 17m, 15m, and 12m for just over an hour.
This time, 17m was the S2S band, to catch a few west coast activator duos:
W6TED and N1CLC on W6/SC-460
WU7H and WW7DF on W7W/SK-163
On 12m, I got N6AN on his home peak of W6/CT-225, as well.
- Trailhead: Two parking areas within the activation zone: 39.79122, -78.43923 and 39.79464, -78.43801 . I parked at the former.
- Map: [AA3TZ SOTA]
- Route: Drive-on along Big Mountain Road
- POTA: US-5463 Buchanan State Forest
Satisfied with my progress for the day, I spent the night in the lovely town of Bedford.
Tom Zajdel 
Thanks for this write-up and the gorgeous pictures! I haven’t made it out to play radios in a few weeks. I’m primed to go now 🙂 72s de KD0FNR
Yes! I am still pining to get back to CA. If not this summer, it will be the next. Have fun!