A place to put my stuff
For my last SOTA activation while living in Cyprus, I decided to go back to the first peak I activated, but approach it differently. The first time, I took the foot trail to the west of the peak, this time I took the road to the east of the peak. Both got the job done, and it’s really a matter of taste as to which one is best.
Continue reading “SOTA: 5B/CY-002 (Madari) Encore”I tried and failed to activate Kalogyria earlier this year and did not have time for another attempt before leaving Cyprus, so hopefully this information will benefit the next person making the attempt.
I had been saving this one for while, the tallest peak on Cyprus, also known as Mount Olympus. In the winter, this summit is a ski slope, which seems hard to believe now that it is the summer and temperatures are routinely peaking over 40C. I headed up the mountain to get out of the heat.
I made life unnecessarily hard for myself on this one. When I looked at the map, I saw the summit was not too far from a named geographical feature, the Church of Prophet Ilias (warning: one many of churches of Prophet Ilias on the island) so I figured that it would make sense to navigate there first and then follow back roads to the summit (the pink route on the map below). That ended up working, but is not the most efficient way to the summit.
The drive out to this six-point peak looked very similar after last week’s activation of 5B/CY-026, which is just a bit to the east of this one. Summer days are long enough to attempt both on a single day, but you would need to start early, particularly coming from the eastern side of the island as I am. Both of these summits are not near main roads, so they require more navigation than most 5B summits.
It took me a couple years to get around to activating this four point peak because I was not sure of how to reach it. It is most of the way west on the island, but but closer to Nicosia than many of the sites further south because it can be reached via the A9/B9 highway that runs just south of the green zone rather than by driving around the entire of the island on the coastal highway.
Continue reading “SOTA: 5B-CY/026 (Moutti tou Chareri)”This four-point peak is about equidistant to Paphos and Limmasol and the drive out is not bad at all. It would be easy to drive past the access road that leads up to the peak from route F617 because the road is not very visible until you are right on top of it, so go slowly down the hill that leads to it. The road to the summit is packed dirt, but in good condition and not too steep. I have highlighted the route up in red, below.
5B/CY-031 was coincidentally the thirty-first SOTA peak that I have activated in Cyprus. The day was not blisteringly hot and there was a nice breeze up there, so after activating, I just laid out on large rock and sunned myself before the drive back. It is not the greenest SOTA site — it does not have the elevation to support conifers, but of the dry, scrubby sites, it is among the prettiest and least disturbed: no shotgun shells or garbage anywhere up there.
I followed 5B/M0BLF/P ‘s excellent account of his earlier visit to this peak and found it as described. As I approached the town, my first option was to head up a relatively steep hill. However, when I drove beyond this, I came to the town itself and just followed road signs to the Agia Marina church. The main roads through town were wide enough even for my Landcruiser, although some of the side alleys would be tight. Although I went up on a Sunday, my car was the only one in the church’s car park.
Three sites north of Limmasol would make a good day trip: each is about 20 to 30 minutes from the other: CY-039, CY-029, and CY-031. I got a late start and dallied on the second site, so I only manage to get two in, but an efficient activator could easily manage all three in one outing.
