YO/ON4KCY/P
SOTA ACTIVATION IN BUCEGI MOUNTAINS, Romania
August 2019
For activating Furnica YO/MC-222, just take the cable car from Sinaia on an easy and lazy way.
I choose a less easy one for having some hike.
The planned one was quite short (+/- 15km) following the marked walking path. Actually, it was a real demanding trip with just sporadic indication and 80% without a real path to follow.
I started from a parking along the road DJ713 for activating YO/MC-086 @1925m the 8 points Vânturis then YO/MC-006 Furnica @2103m for 10 points.
Overview of the path from MC-086 to MC-222
It was sunny with some clouds and warm.
From the parking to Vânturis, no road or path but the way is quite short and easy. It took only 45 minutes to reach the summit.
What a view ! The SOTA YO/MC-006, 007, 217 and 222 seems to be just some kilometres away.
View to Furnica (YO/MC-222 from YO/MC-086
Set up at YO/MC-086
An easy activation at this summit. A lot of space there to deploy easily my trapped dipole.
Strong signals but with a lot of noise on 40M. Almost only usable in CW due to strong QRM.
As soon as the activation ended, I packed the equipment and took the direction of the valley for crossing the river on a bridge mentioned on my map.
Underway, I had to challenge a wild dog's attack.
Some hundreds meters where it has to be a bridge, nothing ! Just some rocks !
Fortunately, at this period of the year, the water was quite low.
From this point, I only found the marks but not really a walking path.
Just go through the mountain. With the pretty weather I had, from pole or mark on the rocks to the next one was obvious. I was lucky having no fog this time !
From time to time on a limited distance, a path appears again.
This part of the hike up to Vârful cu Dor was challenging and partly quite dangerous with very low grip under your shoes and falls just aside.
But the nature was so nice at the middle of nowhere that I don’t regret at all choosing this more difficult way. It seems very few people follows this walk.
From the beautiful point of interest Masa Ciobanului with his splendid table rocks, the human activity is back and the hike becomes very easy.
Furnica in sight ! Now, just follow the road from this ski resort !
The summit of YO/MC-006 Furnica is very crowdy but the installation at the top is facilitated by a lot of poles available for fixing my lightweight mast.
For lazy trip, joining the summit from the cable car just take 15 to 20 minutes.
Leaving the ski station, View from the valley
Going down to the parking is easy. Following the small river within the narrow valley is amazing.
A view of Furnica at the arrival to the parking
All together, a enjoyable hike with a dual great SOTA experience !
Thanks for QSO chasers.
CU to the next SOTA activation in YO.
Yves YO/ON4KCY/P
YO/EC-480 Similia could be reached from the village in about 1.5 hour. Just follow the rocky road and when you see the summit at the end of the wooden area, go strait to the summit in the field. 
Perhaps would it be acceptable to drive some hundreds meters with the car but I didn’t take this risk.
It was a lot of warmer than during my previous SOTA.
