After much search by the hiders on various mapping programs, Conrad found a site that looked very promising. On the Wednesday before the hunt I set out after work to scope out the hide spot and make sure it was accessible and not behind any no trespassing or private property signs. As I headed south, I could see smoke coming from the general direction of the hide spot that we had picked out. A quick google search showed Boarder 32 fire had broken out earlier in the day. As it turns out, there was a fire in the area and some areas close to the hide spot were under evacuation. I debated canceling the location but decided I would check it out anyways as the fire was further to the south. I arrived just as it was getting dark to find a very promising site. While at the site I sent some photos to Conrad and called him to let him know we had a good location and that we just had to wait and see what the fire in the area did. To our luck the fire was contained before the hunt and evacuations in surrounding areas where lifted.
On the day of the hide, after packing the gear and having lunch and killing some more time, hiders Conrad KG6JEI and Greg KI6RXX started heading towards the site. That’s when Conrad got an urgent message and had to detour and was unable to help with the setup. I continued to head down and proceeded to setup on my own. I was able to make it down and get setup by 4:50 PM just enough time to provide some well needed water the local plants and relief for myself before calling the hiders for a signal check. I called Tom who said he wasn’t hiding so I then hung up and proceeded to call Bill. That’s when I lost cell phone coverage. Oops, I have a major problem now, no cell coverage and I don’t have the local repeaters programed into my radio to call the hunters. I left the radio on and pointed in our original intended direction and proceeded to drive up the hill to try and find coverage. After many attempts, I finally got ahold of Joe SZO. He reported no signal heard. Another problem, I was no where near the transmitter to make adjustments. I quickly got the local Lions Peak Repeater info from him and hoped on and asked them to monitor. To my relief I could hit it no sweat from the site. I then headed back down and increased the power of the radio to one watt. Still nothing heard. I then changed the direction of the 13 element yagi antenna I was using to point more directly at the start location. Bruce reported that the signal was way down in the weeds. Ok perfect. By this time, it was going on 5:20 PM. No time to make any further adjustments so we let it be and the hunters where off. It was announced there would be three transmitters and first to find all three would be the winner. The main transmitter was Id’ing twice and was counted as two transmitters then a micro running 15mw with 20db of attenuation was placed above the main antenna on the pole. Hunting teams where Bill W6ZM and Joe KE6PHB, Joe N6SZO, and Brice KA6AUW.
For most of the hunt I was unable to monitor APRS due to lack of cell coverage. At about 6:10 PM something changed and I was all of a sudden able to get APRS, but it was spotty. Conrad called and reported his detour was over and he would make it down before the end of the hunt. Oops, looks like one team is close. Time to place the “No Treaspassing Sign”. 
And it worked! ZM and PHB saw the sign and turned around and went a different direction! 
They never did find us. By this time, Conrad was in the area and trying to find out how to sneak into the hiding spot without being seen. Bruce was the first to arrive. His first comment to me was that I ignored a’ No Trespassing sign” on my hunt. I asked him if he was sure that it wasn’t a custom sign put up by the hiders. So, he was fooled by the sign as well but decided that it didn’t matter because his equipment told him to proceed. Real sign or not, he surmised I was past it. SZO was next to arrive. He noticed the misspelling of the sign and was not fooled. After Conrad saw ZM and PHB team leave the area he snuck in. Congratulations to Bruce who is the winner and was first to find all three transmitters. Joe SZO came in second finding all three. By this time it was 7:30 PM so I called team ZM and PHB, who had not found us yet, and sent them the location of the restaurant. We proceeded to tear down and headed to Casa de Pico for some very good Mexican food. Some of the best Chili Verde I think I have had with the T-Hunt group.
Thank you all for coming out and we hope you had fun. Sorry the other regular hunters could not make it. We hope to see you on our next hide and on the next hunt.
Hunters of the North,
Conrad KG6JEI and Greg KI6RXX
-ARTTT, Amateur Radio Tower Trailer Team
