Bob Cunnings NW8L | |
This year I returned to the Ojito Wilderness for FOBB. The location was | |
up on a mesa overlooking the Arroyo Bernalillito area of the Wilderness | |
northwest of Albuquerque, NM, adjacent to Zia Pueblo lands. A narrow | |
promontory juts out northward from the main body of the mesa, with its | |
head standing about 300 feet above the surrounding terrain at an elevation | |
of 6100 feet. This is a great spot for a QRP station if you don't mind | |
the July heat! | |
Entrance sign to the Ojito Wilderness | |
North view of the mesa | |
The caprock forms a sheer vertical sandstone wall at the top and the slopes | |
below are steep with ia lot of loose and crumbling rock. The best way up is | |
to climb the ridge at the far left and work up to the wall very gradually | |
over the slopes and terraces below. Then the wall can be followed to the | |
entrance point. | |
The cleft in the wall | |
A tree marks a break in the sandstone wall which is one of the few places | |
offering easy access to the top. | |
The final passage | |
Here a tree is perched precariously on a sandstone shelf supported by | |
crumbling mudstone. | |
The antenna | |
This year the antenna was a 33 foot doublet with a balanced feedline, made | |
from vinyl speaker wire. The antenna was supported by a 32 ft. telescoping | |
fiberglass windsock pole, tied to a juniper tree. It was set up as a | |
"sloper" with the low end tied off to another juniper tree. This was all I | |
needed since I was making a single-band effort on 20 meters. The rig is my | |
trusty Elecraft KX1, with a small self-powered speaker. Power is supplied | |
by 8 AA cells in an external pack. RF output is about 3W on 20 m. | |
The radio shack | |
Near the edge the rock is broken up, and I set up the shack in this cleft | |
under the juniper tree holding up the antenna mast, with a "Noah's Tarp" | |
for shade. | |
The view to the West | |
To the West is Cabezon, a volcanic plug, looming on the horizon. | |
The view to the North | |
To the North is the area in the Ojito Wilderness where the dinosaur | |
"Seismosaurus" was excavated. The old track you see leads to the | |
excavation site. | |
The view to the East | |
To the East is White Mesa, where gypsum is mined to make wallboard. | |
The KX1 set up and ready to go | |
Conditions were variable, with stations fading in and out the whole time. | |
I made 39 QSOs, all on 20 meters. 35 were with fellow BBs, and 4 with home | |
stations. 25 states and provinces were worked: | |
ID, CA, MI, WA, IL, OR, GA, MS, WI, WV, ON, NY, AZ, ND, IN, OH, MO, | |
NM, NE, TX, TN, NC, VA, OK and FL. | |
Once FOBB was done, I took a few pictures before heading down. | |
Some flowers on the mesa | |
Some more flowers on the mesa | |
Even though this seems like a tough place to live, wildflowers manage to | |
grow here. It rained quite a bit in these parts in the last 2 weeks so | |
these flowers are blooming. | |
A juniper tree on the mesa | |
The juniper trees are pretty gnarled, this one is showing how they help | |
break up the rock with their roots. | |
Old metal fragments | |
More old metal fragments | |
Even more old metal fragments | |
Scattered around on top are old crumpled fragments of heavy iron sheet | |
metal. I've been told that this area was used as a bombing range for the | |
training of B-17 crews flying out of Kirkland Field during WWII, and | |
that these are dummy bomb fragments. I don't know if that is true. If not, | |
it's a mystery, because there seems to be a lot of the stuff out here. | |
A stock pond on the range | |
Here is a picture of a stock pond filled by recent rains, east of the Ojito | |
on the way out. I haven't seen this pond filled in years. The last time it | |
I saw it filled it was populated by "desert shrimp", strange crustaceans | |
that lurk deep in the ground during dry times, then emerge when the pond | |
fills. I didn't get close enough to look for them this time. | |
See you next year! | |