A Visit to Pacific Spirit Park

The Pacific Spirit Park is a wonderful reserve for all of us. The park has a central forested area with many trails through it. It also includes the shoreline around UBC offering spectacular views of the Ocean, Mountains and even human anatomy. The park is divided into various sections and for today’s visit Ralph and I chose a grassy area on the north side of the campus. In reviewing the potential for the parks on the air program I was looking for an open area where we could set up out equipment. A small area also called Foreshore Park looked ideal for us.

In searching the area on Google maps, it looked like the grassy park had no close by parking. Eventually I spotted a parking lot to its east alongside NW Marine Drive. It was only around 300m from the grass so was perfect for us. In studying the Parks site further, I also discovered that the grassy Foreshore Park was also listed as a separate park entry. We could go there and claim a double park as the Foreshore Park was inside of the Pacific Spirit Park. As an extra bonus the Foreshore Park had never been activated in the program and one of us would get the honour of being first.

With all that info in hand, Ralph arrived at my place a bit before 11am and we started our trek to the park. The navcom claimed it would take around 55 minutes. We made decent time along the highway and then marine drive to UBC. Soon we reached the parking area which was mostly empty. I parked the car and we got out for a short walk around. There is a main shoreline trail that descends from the lot which we followed to a small picnic area. It had a lovely view of English Bay. The trail continued toward Foreshore Park and we could have taken it, however, we noticed a sidewalk along Marine drive that also went our way and would not involve dropping down and climbing back up the side of the cliff that forms the area.

Back at the car, we loaded the cart and made our way along Marine Drive. Soon we reached the grass and scouted out the area. The grass was mostly tall and uncut except for some wide mowed paths through it. We followed the mowed path and soon Ralph spotted a shaded area where he decided he would operate. I continued along the trail gaining a bit more elevation. On one steep section the cart tipped over and I had to reload it. I soon spotted a shaded park bench next to the road which looked ideal as it was partially shaded and offered a good location for the antenna.

I pulled my cart to the bench and then set up the antenna in the grass alongside the mowed trail. It worked out well as the trail was in the direction I like to deploy my antenna. I finished setting up my radio and started looking for other park activators which I could hear. I soon found one on 20m and called out. He heard my call and after finishing with another station called for me. I had my first contact in the log at 12:21. Though I heard Ralph on the air ahead of me, I managed to beat him by 2 minutes. So, the first activation was mine.

That park activator ended up being the only one I could work and so I found an open frequency and started my own calling. It took a few minutes but I eventually had a station in Wisconsin come by. He reported some interference at that frequency which I also could hear a bit so I moved up band by one Kilohertz. I next had a station from Rhode Island followed by North Carolina. I was hearing the east coast quite well. Though the responses were slow in coming, I reached my needed ten in a half hour. I continued further to put a few extras in the log and then at 1pm I switched to the 15m band. I wasn’t after large number of contacts so moving to 15m was a chance to try something different.  It took a number of minutes of calling but I eventually worked a chap in Massachusetts and then a regular in Ontario. I next worked a repeat station who I talked to on the other band. Being a different band, this counted as well as the first. I next tried the 17m band. This resulted in me working a local chap on the Sunshine Coast. He was really strong and we decided to try a few other bands, first was 15m and then my 2m handheld where he came in strong. We also tried 10m and 12m. He was strong on all bands. So I ended up with 5 contacts with Bob .

After Bob went on his way Ralph called to say he finally was able to get his 10th contact and felt like packing up. We had been going at it for around 90 minutes so I agreed to shutdown soon as well. I decided to first take a pass through the 20m band to see if I could work another park. I heard a chap in Minnesota which I called and got through to. He had a second operator so that counted for two contacts. I finished the day with 22 in my log. Not a bad outing. I also worked stations on 6 different bands which was a special achievement in its own right.

It had been a fun time at the park, I packed up my gear and started back down the grass path to Ralph. Wouldn’t you know it, the cart flipped over again right near the point it did on the way up! So, it needed reloading again. That spot was certainly out to get me. Ralph waited by the path and we loaded in his gear and then made for the car. We were there a bit before 2:30 and hoped we would miss the traffic. The Navcom said the return would take 65 minutes. Around ten more than before. We started out on the route and followed it along some turns that I would not have made on my own but it was trying to avoid slowdowns and hopefully it did. We arrived at my place within a minute of the original estimate the navcom had predicted in the parking lot! Not bad at all.

Though the drive is a bit tiring, we both had a lovely time in the sun and making radio contacts. There are another 8 parks along English Bay that we can do, so I guess we will be back before long.