Watts Sugar Loaf is in The Blackjack Range near Hawker it was a new summit for Hugh and I to activate this year. We had to visit and meet the land owner for a while first to get directions on how to get close to the summit.

We had to 4 X 4 about 5 km along an old track that follows the boundary fence line between two properties so permission was obtained from both land owners last year but we could not get a convenient time to visit then.

When we arrived at the park spot we could see that it was going to be quite a hard climb with lots of scratchy bush and a very rocky steep surface. We did our best to contour and climbed in a zig zag to the saddle on the southern edge of the hill. Amazing how these Native Pine trees can survive in such a harsh environment of just rocks and dry dirt.

Once on the saddle we found this stone wall running along the top of the range and can only imagine how hard it was to build it up here, and did the builders descend the hill every day or stay on the range for several days at a time. The logistics of such projects must have been quite tough back in the day. The wall was not very high but very well built.

Hugh and I made our way to the trig point which had seen better day to save the summit in my GPS then we went to find a nice place in the shade to activate.

Way off to the south is The Horse Shoe Range and the area below is where we had to 4X4 to get to the summit.

This view here is to the north east direction across to Cradock.

Several summits to the south in view around Quorn.

Sorry about the lilly white legs, tested the Keen Hiking sandals on this hike and they are very stable and light to hike in even in this stoney country.

We did not make very many QSO as it was lunch time by the time we got on air. Hugh got 5 QSO on 40m SSB and I had 2 SSB and 3 CW QSO on 40m. Did quickly call CQ on 15m 20m but got no answer so headed down for lunch ourselves.

Probably the only other thing to mention here is this property owner owns another summit and he has granted permission to visit there some time this year. That make 5 summits around Hawker and last year we only had one. Ground work and just asking people has really paid off this time and thanks to Mark and Ben for access to Watts Sugar Loaf.

Thanks to the SOTA chasers.

Thanks for reading my blog.

Ian vk5cz ..