During my recent vacation to Victoria I decided to try SOTA from a pair of the local summits near Victoria. This trip I planned to activate Bear Hill and Mt. Douglas. My first target was to hike up Bear Hill and operate in the morning and then just after lunch to try Mt. Doug. So after a liesurely breakfast Cari and I drove to the parking lot of the Bear Hill Park and started up the trail. A short way along I saw that I had left my Yagi in the car so after a quick return we were back on the climb to the summit. Bear Hill is a short easy hike up the slope and we were soon enjoying the views from the summit. I got my Yagi assembled and put out a call. Soon Ken (VE7HI) from the club was hearing me but I couldn't hear him. We were able to connect via the Northshore repeater but not directly. The same was true for a few other stations. I eventually was able to contact 4 but it was a challenge, they were hearing me but not the reverse. It was getting very frustrating.

After a longer stay then intended we packed up and had lunch at the nearby Elk Lake. We decided we were too hot to try Mt. Doug so we set off back for our room. The next day we did get tot he summit of Mt. Douglas and I tried more calls but heard nothing. I then set up my HF radio and with that only the 40m nontime net could be heard faintly, not a great start. I tried 20m and 40m but heard very few stations and those very weakly. So I packed up and will try again on my next trip. 

Once I got ome I studied up on my radio and learned that it does have trouble with selectivity and hence the better antenna was actually making things worse for me. I will need to use my Icom next time out. Still it was fun getting up there and gathering a few photos

a few more photos can be found here: https://www.scenicart.ca/content/bear-victoria