Most of the summits in the Tucson area are steep, treacherous, gravel peaks worth 4-6 points. Two summits ago I tore open and broke my thumb. Last summit, I had to slide down most of it on my butt. It stops being fun when you are concerned about whether or not you are going to get back to the truck in one piece. Suffice to say, I am a bit burned out on these summits. I spent the last two weeks contemplating what I was going to do SOTA wise. I did some scouting in other areas etc and determined that I really had no choice but to do some of the local peaks unless I wanted to do a lot of travel in the truck. Although I like travelling, it is not always possible to spend that kind of time and money to activate a summit. I decided that I was going to do Golden Gate but my head was immediately not in it. I forced myself to start the climb and initially it wasn't bad, at least not as bad as the sister summit Bren's Better. I got about 3/4 up and realized that getting to the top, at least the way I went, was not going to be easy. After surveying, I found the "easiest" route to the top. I looked at how steep and full of gravel it was and decided that I wanted to abort. I headed back down to the truck and had to make another decision. I had it in my head that I wanted to do as many unique summits as possible. I hoped I could get to 1000 points doing all uniques. Well, my scouting the weeks before and the reality that most of the summits in the area are the same as this one, made me realize that that was not an easy option. The math of all the summits in my area would not get me near 1000 points even with bonus points and an inclination to do them all. Add to that, I really didn't want to do a lot of lengthy travel to get to unique summits. So I decided I was going to go back to Mt Bigelow, one of the handful of 10 pointers in the area that I was eligible to do again. Mt. Bigelow, like pretty much all the 10 pointers in the area is a simple walk up; just park in the forest and walk the nice dirt road to the activation point. I sure wish there were more of these around here, it would make getting to 1000 points very easy. I am very envious of people who are surrounded by 10 pointers. I made about a dozen contacts and had a good day before the rain came in. I am going to take another look at the Buddipole as an antenna as my signal reports are not where I would like them to be.
