Echinocereus coccineus – the stupendously cool named Scarlett Hedgehog on the summit of Beacon Hill
10 JUNE 2023 W7A/CS-038
| Elevation: | 7,470′ |
| Route: | Cross country |
| Hike Distance: | 1 mile round trip |
| Elevation Gain: | 520′ |
| Navigation: | Easy |
| Steepness: | Moderate |
| Vehicle: | Passenger car |
| Road: | Dirt road |
| Cell Coverage: | Excellent (Verizon), excellent APRS |
I’d tried to do Beacon Hill earlier in the year but without snowshoes I found myself breaking through up to my hips and turned around after just a few hundred feet.
On this excursion I first did Summit Mountain and then drove back to do this one. Here is my drive route to the Beacon Hill trailhead
As I was getting ready to leave Whitedog the Tacoma, I discovered that my Garmin InReach Mini was missing! That meant I must’ve lost it somewhere on Summit Mountain. I decided to go ahead and climb Beacon and then backtrack and look for this expensive bit of kit.
The short hike on this one is fairly easy to navigate – just keep heading up. There was no snow this time, but the air was pretty smokey from prescribed burns in the area.
When I got to the summit I called Cassie KG6MZR back in New Mexico and in chatting with her I found out that she had received a cryptic text that read “Found road look tree.” I immediately knew someone had found my ImReach and had left me a waypoint to recover it! As Blanche Dubois said “Whoever you are – I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.” albeit with better results than perhaps poor Blanche.
Armed with this encouraging news, I made this activation rather brief compared to my usual style. Sorry if I missed any of my usual chasers. Here is the log:
To conclude the saga of my InReach: I followed the mysterious and kind stranger’s waypoint and found my InReach hanging from a tree beside the road where I gather it had fallen off this bumper of my car. Thank you, whoever you are!
Since I had to drive back to pick up the InReach, I decided to add a return trip to Bill Williams Mountain to the day’s SOTA activities. This serendipitous activation gave me my first 30 point day. Funny how things work out.
KG6MZS 
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