SOTA: EA3/BC-016 Montalt

On my second day in Barcelona, I had to choose between activating an historic two-point peak, Sant Jeroni (EA3/BC-012) or trying one of the four one-point peaks along the coast to the northeast of Barcelona, EA3/BC-015, 16, 17,  and 18.

Sant Jeroni is the site of a monastery and is well-described online. There is a funicular railway that runs some distance towards the peak, and the peak can be reached by stairs from two sides. Early Saturday morning, I decided that I would rather find my way up some local trails than deal with the press of tourists at a popular site.

On the previous day, I had tried to take the rental car up EA3/BC-015, and found that I could not get very far up the mountain road. I was concerned that the same would be true of all of the peaks along the coast, but thought it would be fun to try anyhow.

I aimed for EA3/BC-016, Montalt, which was about an hour drive from downtown Barcelona. Travel is on major roadways up to the town of Sant Andreu de Llavaneres. A few relatively narrow streets wind through the town and begin angling upwards. The roads through the upper end of the residential area become rough, but smoothen after a bit.

I took my trusty rental car along the path plotted by Google Maps a considerable distance and saw a lot of bicyclers, hikers, and a few people on motorcycles. At one point, though, the road got very steep through a switchback. A passing biker just looked at the car, shook his head, and kept going. I wasn’t sure whether it was a comment on the propriety of taking a car up the path or whether he thought I was crazy for trying, but as I came around the next corner, the road became so steep that I could not press on with the car. The wheels did not have enough traction on the sandy soil, and I had to back down. I turned around and descended to a slightly wider area where I could park the car on the verge.

At that point, I was 2.6 kilometers from the SOTA coordinates for the peak, a point at the convergence of three paths. On Google Maps, the peak itself is to the southwest of those coordinates, however.

It is a nice walk along the path, with mild ups and downs and the path is in generally good condition.

Along the way, there is often a view of the sea. On the way to the three-way intersection marked on the map, I passed a few side trails, but was not sure which led to the summit, so I continued to the intersection.

From aerial view, the paths near the summit look like unimproved dirt roads, and that is exactly what they are. The three-way intersection was not remarkable, except for signs pointing to nearby towns. Just before the intersection, though, I had passed a promising-looking side trail, so I backtracked to that trail and started climbing.

The rocky trail is well trod, but not otherwise marked.

It continues upward and south towards the peak, and near the top of the trail, I was able to see the waving Catalan flag through the vegetation.

The summit is marked by a trig point and a flagpole. To the right of the flag are a few boulders, which are a nice place to rest in the shade. In addition to the trail that I came up, a few mountain bikers emerged from the woods in different directions, so the peak is definitely served by multiple trails. I don’t know that the one I took up was the most efficient from where I parked.

An unusual feature of the summit — and a folk practice about which I have no clue — are the several nativity scenes that have been left in various corners of the summit. There is also a gourd tied to a tree. And several shoes. And a car key. Not sure what it all means.

I secured my portable mast to the flagpole and used it to suspend my 10/20/40m end-fed antenna, with the feedpoint supported by bushes. I found it comfortable to sit with my back to the trig point marker and worked contacts on 20 (cw and ssb) and 40m. My first contact was G4SSH, and I think this has been the case a couple other times — I had barely sent my first call and was flattening the page of my log book, when he came back to me immediately. Another notable call was from K4MF, who seems to find me no matter where I am. I had a few other calls, and particularly appreciate those who worked me despite weak signal, I received at least one 219, which is about as low as you can go and still make a contact.

In all, I made 36 contacts, and some mentioned difficulty due to nearby weekend contest activity. Contacts du jour were with Poland, Romania, Czech Republic, Denmark, Netherlands, Northern Ireland, USA, Hungary, Germany, England, Switzerland, France, Finland, Italy, and Belarus.

I heard conversations on 145.5 FM, but the channel was constantly busy and I did not want to interrupt a conversation for the sake of a contact. I did try calling CQ up and down a bit from 145.5 on 2m, and I tried 70cm with no luck.

While I was at the peak, I ran into a few people who were curious about my activity, including one who began the conversation with “¿Radio Afficianado?” At least I had an answer for that: ¡Si! Luckily, his English was better than my Spanish, and we talked for a while. He was surprised to find an American sitting on top of a “local” mountain. I muddled through a couple other conversations drawing on my foggy memory of medical-Spanish and what I hoped were French cognates.

On the way back to the car, I ran into three women hikers, who asked me where I was from — or, at least, that’s what I heard. When I said that I was from the US, they giggled and re-phrased ending “ahora”. Ah, so they had meant, where was I coming from. I replied that I had just been to the summit and they nodded. I was going to make a joke about having walked from the US and boy was I tired, but I realized that I couldn’t remember which word meant “tired” and which meant “married”, and thought it best to avoid confusion.

Google translate would have been handy, but I had only edge connectivity. I should mention that along most of the trail, I had G3/4 connectivity, but at the summit Edge and GPRS were in and out.

So, Sant Jeroni and the other coastal summits remain for next time.