I spent early Saturday afternoon in DM55 in the Cibola National Forest south of Thoreau, NM.  In the couple of hours I had there, I enjoyed the 6m opening that stretched as far east as EM64 from my location.  Later that afternoon, I drove to the Bisti / De-Na-Zin Wilderness Area in DM56 and set up long enough to make a few contacts and check out the terrain for a return Sunday morning.  I spent the night in Farmington.

On Sunday morning, I returned to Bisti and concentrated on making 6 m meteor scatter contacts, and that was reasonably successful.  In the late morning I set out for DM66, traveling through Farmington after some backtracking to avoid what I was surprised to learn was probably going to be a 4WD trip across tribal land.  In DM66, I was again surprised that my intended operating spot was apparently on tribal land (not sure how I missed that) behind a locked gate, so I had to settle for a large pullout on NM 550 northwest of Cuba, NM.  By the time I got there, the worst of the rain had stopped, so I set up.  Then the silent petition, "Please don't make me use meteors here," which was not granted.

Over the contest period, I made more contacts via meteor scatter than any other mode, followed by roughly equal numbers of SSB and FT8 contacts, and a few via CW.  I made two non-digital contacts with anyone outside CO/NM on 6 m SSB.  None into AZ on 2 m tropo scatter from DM55, despite decent power and antenna, which was disappointing.  Perhaps I was just too distracted by the 6 m action to have given it a proper effort, or maybe everyone on 2 m there is now on FT8, which I didn't check.  I'd be interested in knowing what it takes to work anyone via tropo scatter in AZ, particularly in terms of coordination.

I had the usual number of equipment, software, and mental failures:  two cables, one brand new; several laptop reboots required; and you know the contest is almost over when you start to say things on Slack like, "Let's keep trying for a couple more minutes because for the last several I haven't actually been transmitting," instead of, "Guess the rocks are gone."

Anyway, final score 2204: 58 QSO points x 38 mults

John AA5PR