Third Annual W1 SOTA 2024 Winter Bonus Event On Mount Sunapee: A Study In Peer Pressure And A Bothy Bag Gear Test

If my friends jumped off a bridge would I? Well, this is such a nuanced question. First, how high is the bridge? Next, what is under the bridge? Third, who was going to go first?

And when someone declares a Summits-On-The-Air “Winter Bonus and Summit-to-Summit Weekend Event” as Bob AC1Z has now done for three years in a row, how can I possibly say no?

Let’s be clear about something. This is not exactly fun. That is AA1F pausing by a sign along the Summit Trail of Mount Sunapee. Note that his Atlas 1025MTN snowshoes are hanging off his back. Three 20 ounce bottles of liquid and a pair of Kahtoola Microspikes are hiding in the Granite Gear AC backpack. Just what I described is about 13 pounds of gear. Boots and extra clothing, well probably at least another 5 pounds. One pound of Newman’s Own Italian Sausage and Uncured Pepperoni (previously frozen, and quickly re-freezing) pizza, cut specifically into 6 slices, and a few other trail snacks are tucked away as well. Trust me, this pizza makes great hiking food! My pack holds the identical 20 pounds of weight. And we haven’t even mentioned radio equipment yet…

The Summit Trail starts in the Mount Sunapee Resort parking lot, crosses one of the ski trails, and then hugs the Lower, Outer, and Upper Ridge ski trails. It collides at about the 0.5 mile mark with the Sunapee Ragged Kearsage Greenway (SRKG) trail. AA1F snapped that picture of me making my way up the apparent trail. Below you can get an idea of what the trail looked like after AA1F had passed by. We essentially were breaking it in from the what was about a freshly covered 10 inch snow base. Surprisingly, we never needed to wear our microspikes or our snowshoes. In fact, we joked that all we needed to bring was a single handi-talkie, a bottle of gatorade, and the pizza in a stuff sack. We really did not need anything else, but unfortunately you never know that when you are just beginning a winter hike.

We made it to the top!

If you turned in one direction, you can see a radio tower obscured by the light snow showers above us. It snowed lightly the entire trek. If you were to pivot just a bit to the right in the photo, you would actually see the summit chairlift and lodge. In a little bit of irony, we only take chairlifts in the summer.

AA1F and I are never good at these planned summit activations. We are, despite our best intentions and efforts, always late. We did not summit until around 2:30pm. On the way up, we heard plenty of our buddies on their various summits. Both Jeff AC1JR and Bob AC1Z headed up Mt. Israel. JB KC1MXB was on Mt. Paugus. Joe KC1SRI was on Jolly Mountain. We heard Fred WX1S chasing as well. Unfortunately, although we were able to contact them, we were nowhere near our summit while they were activating theirs, missing the opportunity for a prized “summit-to-summit” qso. We snagged our respective five and six contacts (I missed one of them) on 146.52 MHz as we moseyed between the outer boundary of the activation zone and the summit proper.

The temperature at the top was in the teens. Once we summited, we retraced our steps back down into the woods. Still in the activation zone, and still with every intention of setting up the KX2 transceiver for some HF action, we began the next goal of this quest — testing of our new Summit Supalite 4-Person Bothy Bag. That’s the amorphous orange thing AA1F is holding on to. [Remember, I do not get paid either in cash or free gear for the products I mention on this site. I buy everything myself, am not sponsored in any way, and am in no way affiliated with any of the companies that make these products. I just like talking about gear.]

It was all the way back in 2022 when Eric KC1FGY dropped me a line suggesting that I try a bothy bag. Quite frankly, I had never heard of this device before. Anyone who has read this blog for any length of time knows that I am a big believer in bringing a tarp with you on all hikes, and typically use an REI Quarter Dome SL. At the time I was intrigued, but not particularly convinced enough to buy one.

I must have been feeling colder this year. I took the plunge and bought not one, but two bothy bags from Summit, an UK company. I figured since I had to have one shipped overseas, I might as well get two. And quite frankly, I could not decide between the one pound regular 4-person model or the 0.8 pound “Supalite” version. I asked in my order form that the company attempt to get it us before this event, a less than 2 week turnaround time, and they did! With almost a week to spare!

The bothy bag is indeed a bag. It is a lot like a dome-shaped tarp without a floor. The Supalite model has a couple of velcro vents for air exchange. The regular model includes a plastic window. Just throw it over your heads and gear and sit down. There is a draw cord around the bottom edge, so you can cinch the sides close in around you. We found that if each of us supports the roof with a walking stick somewhere near our head, the result is quite cozy. You just use your body and gear to hold down the bag and provide support to the walls.

The result? It was instantly warmer on the inside. We did not have a thermometer to measure the difference, but the wind was no longer a factor (even though there was not a lot of it up on Sunapee anyway). We could take our gloves off and eat rather comfortably. I was really surprised at how effective this piece of gear was. There are loops on the topside that would allow you to hang the bag as well. I am a little scared that my beloved tarp may actually be taking a backseat. I can tell too that I like this lighter weight supalite model better than the regular version, just because it is smaller when packed and lighter. I think the regular version, with its thicker fabric, may be even a bit warmer than this one though.

And now that we carried up snowshoes we never needed, microspikes we never put on, and fluids we never drank, well, what is one more piece of needlessly carried gear? Because of our successful 2M activation, we never bothered setting up for HF. The KX2, 25 feet of coax, 20M EFHW antenna, and paracord were simply dead weight. Not to mention, AA1F also inexplicably snuck a 14-ounce arborist throw in his bag as well (he honestly always carries this with him up mountains for SOTA…freaking weird!). Between the two of us, we had around 20 pounds of gear we never used.

We packed up and headed down. Can you be sure that is a trail if you look at the picture above? Below you can see me pop around the corner as AA1F snaps my picture. It is easy to see how things can quickly go wrong in the winter.

Because of this, I always hike with a dedicated GPS unit with extra batteries. I have the Garmin GPSMAP 66st, that is now registering nearly 1600 miles on its odometer! Remember the sign on the summit that promised that the “Lodge Parking” was 2.1 miles away? By the time we got back to AA1F’s truck, we had clocked 5.18 miles round trip, or nearly 1 mile farther than the declared mileage! The vertical gain was a healthy 1668 feet. We had expected 1400. That black background surrounding the GPS was due to the fact that it was, at 4:43pm, nighttime. The sun had set at 4:12pm, when we still had about a half mile or so of trail to go. The entire hike took 6 hours and 40 minutes, and the GPS had not moved for almost 3 hours of this. This was not because we took a 3 hour summit lunch break. It is because of the multiple pauses we made overcoming the trail on the way up.

Over the years, this GPS has been frozen, wet, bounced on rocks, and heated up in 100 degree sun. It still works great, can operate with 2 AA alkaline batteries (though it prefers lithium), and is not my cell phone. And when I am hiking in the dark, in sub-freezing weather, on a trail obscured by snow, I can retrace my path with ease. This GPS unit is literally a lifesaver I will not be without.

So we made it off the Mount Sunapee, and back home to our pets who are still holding a grudge that we were gone so long as I type this. It is a rare mountain that AA1F and I hike without Georgie, our shepherd. I don’t love hiking in the winter. It is dangerous. After we left the bothy bag, as my gloved hands hit the colder air again, I could sense the blood vessels of my fingers closing. My hands went numb. For a while, until activity got the blood flowing again, I thought I was going to get frostbite. Eventually, with a painful burning sensation, my fingers warmed up. But it was a reminder of how uniquely cruel winter can be to the unwitting adventurer.

There is a deep sense of belonging though, knowing that you are one of several–like ants–scaling a hill. Hearing the voice of others, just like you, foolish enough to climb a mountain on a frigid, snow-covered, winter day, crackling through a two-way radio. And all because someone so happened to declare a weekend at the start of the winter bonus season an annual event. For a game that ends when you reach 1000 points and are finally qualified to purchase a 3 1/2″ glass faux ice block with your call sign on it…i.e., the Mountain Goat. AA1F and I each got 5 points today for our efforts. We have a little under 250 points to go. We begin our 7th season of playing SOTA in January.

Every so often I stop and wonder what will happen when it is finally over.

Warm, safe, and snuggly yours,

KM1NDY