TK/TK-008 Monte Renosu & TK/TK-031 Monte Giovanni

july 3 2019

TK-008 Monte Renosu - 2352 m - JN42NB64 TK-031 Monte Giovanni - 1950 m - JN42NA80 22.5 km + 1350 m The start for this hike is from the ski station "Val d'Ese" that can be reached after the village of Bastelica. It's a quite long hike that takes almost a day if both summits are activated. But it's probably one of the most sightseeing hikes one can make in Corsica. Several lakes and the famous "Pozzis" are some of the highlights.

I chosed the more difficult path over "The crêtes de Scaldasole" to reach the Pozzis, i kept the easiest and more shady for the return that is done when it's warmer later in the day. The return track also allows to reach TK031 without a too long detour.
I also chosed a bit longer track from the Pozzis to the summit but that allows to see the "Lacs de Rina" and a softer climbing.
A long part of the track is marked with yellow strips, as it is a variant of the famous GR20. Otherwise, there are a lot of cairns.
There are a few places that are more climbing rather than hiking, but nothing really dangerous.

On the summit of the Monte Renosu, there is a big metallic cross that could be used to put some antennas, but the summit was very busy and i chosed a very close solar pannel powered repeater. I didn't detect any QRM on HF, but VHF and UHF are a bit noisy probably due to the radio and solar equipments.
Using some bungee cords, i attached my 10m pole and my 40-10 m EFHW.
50 QSO and several S2S were the reward of all my efforts.

For the return, i chosed the shortest way down to the Pozzis. It confirmed the good idea i had to chose the "soft" track to go, the slope is very steep !
From there, starting at the sheepfolds i followed the track that goes through the forest and reaches a hut from where i left the track and found some cairns that brought me to the summit TK031.
This summit can not be activated as it is a pile of large rocks. I've erected my antenna a bit lower on the grass among some rocks.
Unfortunately, there was a big contest running and no chasers answered. As i didn't want to make only contest QSOs to validate this summit, i have to go back on this summit !