{"id":839,"date":"2011-10-15T14:16:31","date_gmt":"2011-10-15T20:16:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.schnizer.com\/SOTAblog\/?p=839"},"modified":"2011-12-14T21:30:02","modified_gmt":"2011-12-15T04:30:02","slug":"oevb287-galinakopf-2198-7211-ft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.schnizer.com\/SOTAblog\/sota-trip-report\/oevb287-galinakopf-2198-7211-ft\/","title":{"rendered":"OE\/VB-287 (Galinakopf) – 2198 m \/ 7211 ft"},"content":{"rendered":"
As I am writing this (November, 25th, 2011), I learned with great sadness that OE9GWI is now a silent key<\/a>. Even-though I never met Gerhard personally, I had the pleasure working him on all my SOTA activations in Austria. He chased and spotted me on every activation – including this one. He was not only active in the the SOTA program but was also a fellow Buddipole user – I am sorry I could not share this trip report with him – I am sure he would have liked a report from a summit in his ‘back-yard’.
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The rather nasty weather (for a Coloradoan anyway) gave me two days off from my activations. During these days, I exchanged a few e-mails with a local HAM – OE9HRV<\/a>, Herbert – who was my first contact on the ‘Pf\u00e4nder<\/a>‘ (on my first activation in Austria). He not only knows his ‘L\u00e4ndle’ but is also a very busy SOTA activator. He advised me on summits, routes and other local considerations and invited me for a joint activation of the ‘Galinakopf<\/em>‘ for the next day. I accepted of course – no better way to activate a summit than with local knowledge. This summit is rather interesting and is part of the ‘R\u00e4tikon range<\/em>‘ of the Eastern Alps. Since the border between Austria <\/a>and the Principality of Liechtenstein<\/a> goes right across the summit, it carries two SOTA designations – one for Austria (OE\/VB-287) and one for Leichtenstein (HB\u00d8\/LI-\u00d8\u00d87). According to the rules, you can activate this summit from both sides and claim the points twice. Since Liechtenstein is a rather small country (160 square kilometers or 62\u00a0sq\u00a0mi and a population of about 35’000) it has only a few SOTA summits (11) and finding an SOTA activator in HB\u00d8 is therefore a rare opportunity for chasers everywhere. Unfortunately I did not research whether my radio-license is valid in Liechtenstein and therefore chose to activate the summit from the Austrian side only – just to be sure not to violate any rules\/laws.<\/p>\n

Trailhead: 5145 ft \/ 1568 m
\nSummit:\u00a0\u00a0 7211 ft \/ 2198 m
\nElev. gain: 3271 ft \/ 997 m
\nRoundtrip: 9.3 mi \/ 14.9 km<\/p>\n

Compare this summit with my other activated summits<\/a><\/p>\n

How to get there:
\n<\/strong>Herbert (OE9HRV) provided full service and picked me up at my temporary QTH in Dornbirn<\/a>. First we headed west into Switzerland and took E43 (N13) south until the exit of Buchs (SG). We continued to Sevelen where we crossed the bridge over the Rhein which brought us into Vaduz (Liechtenstein) and continued towards Malbun via Triesenberg und Steg. We drove in pretty thick fog until we reached Triesenberg at about 3000 ft or 1000 m AMSL. The views above the fog were just breathtaking and Herbert made a short detour to Gaflei to show me around. Just click on the pictures below to get a larger version and a better idea how it looked like.
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The view from Gaflei<\/p><\/div>\n

There is a skiing area just shortly before arriving in Malbun with the necessary parking lots to accommodate all the cars in winter. That is were we parked the car at 9:30 and walked back down a few hundred yards to to the trail-head.<\/p>\n

Parking\/Trailhead
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