A friend of mine ask if I wanted to do a hike up to White Mountain Peak, I had never heard of this peak. He told me it’s a 14ner, again I had no idea but I agreed to go. He had to back out because of a knee injury. I was still excited about going and doing Ham Radio at the summit for SOTA. I reached out to Mark Knight KD7DTS and asked if he would be interested in joining me, he said yes. I went up on August 9, 2025 to acclimate to the elevation at the locked gate is 11,700 feet. Sunday mornings August 10,2025 hike was sponsored by Rivian EV vehicles so they opened the gate which cut 2.3 miles off the hike, which then started the hike at the research center 3,425 feet of elevation gain. The longest hike I have ever done was 2.5 miles up to W6/CC-002 Mount Pinos Summit. I had no training, my pack was way too heavy, my radio gear was setup for doing POTA not SOTA. I had much much lighter radios in my truck but I chose wrongly!! I have to say it was the toughest thing I have ever attempted. Mark went ahead of me at one point in the hike to get up to the summit and setup our radio station. I must say Mark Knight an unbelievable hiker he is an absolute animal on the trail and I need to publicly thank him for encouraging me all the way up to the summit. I want to be honest, I was hurting the whole way up and didn’t think I was going to make to the summit. But Mark’s encouraging words got me up there. We made all of our QSO’s to activate the summit and the POTA park US-4456 Inyo National Forest. We started heading down the mountain after about 2 miles I started getting nauseous and had to stop and rest. The Rivian EV went out looking for stragglers on the trail, the was two hikers still up on the summit, myself and Mark. We ended up hitching a ride back to Mark’s car at the research center. All in all it was a successful summit activation, but did learn some valuable lessons that day. Never attempt a hike like that without training for it, much lighter radio gear and learn CW so I don’t have to rely on SSB to activate summit!!! It was an adventure I will never forget and I’m sure glad Mark KD7DTS was there with me. 73!!!