Ralph and Eric set out at 7am to hike Zoa Peak in the Coquihalla Summit area. The drive to the exit off the highway went fairly quickly and smoothly. Then the short drive to the Falls Lake parking area. The next leg of the drive was along a forestry road that was very steep and quite washed out and rough with huge ruts. We made our way along the road and up a very steep access road to the old natural gas line right-of-way. There we parked and walked 40 meters to the trailhead. The initial part of the hike was fairly steep through some lovely spruce and pine trees. It the leveled off somewhat once we reached the ridge. The views along the ridge were quite lovely with the fall colours starting to show in the leaves all around us.

We made good time to the summit and there we found a perfect cove of trees to rest between and set up our antennas. The trees offered some good shade and the breeze kept the heat down. Eric made a couple of 2m contacts but most of the work was done on 20 meters in CW. In the end we had 15 contacts and successfully activated another summit. The return hike went quickly even with several stops to gather up more photos.

a few more photos can be seen here: http://www.scenicart.ca/content/sota-zoa