Bobs Mountain is fairly close to Portland, and with a short respite from the rain, an activation plan was hatched. I had the company of Grover, KG7O for a joint activation. We had a good time on the short hike to the summit on a four-wheel drive road and had a sucessful first time activation for this peak.
Directions:
- From Vancouver, head east on Washington 14 for about 19 miles.
- Turn left onto Salmon Falls Rd 3.4 mi
- Turn left onto Washougal River Rd 0.8 mi (You can also use Washougal River Rd the entire way startng in Washougal, but the views are better along WA 14 and the road is not so curvy.)
- Turn right onto Labarre Rd 52 ft
- Turn left onto N Fork Rd 3.3 mi (not really a left turn here - more like straight)
- Slight right onto State Forest Rd
Drive under the power lines to the next "right turn" into the woods – about 0.2 miles. The trailhead is indicated by "TH" on the image below. It may be possible to drive a quarter mile or so up this road in most vehicles, but beyond that it is full-tilt four-wheel drive territory. We parked at "TH" and walked the pleasant 1.5 miles. Where there's a Y in the road, take the rougher, uphill route that leads to the summit. There's a good bit of room on the summit for antennas and operating.
It was a busy day for 20M CW but not so much for 40M SSB. We each had a summit-to-summit with WG0AT on Pikes Peak and dodged the raindrops on this easy two pointer. And although my T-Mobile phone couldn't do anything, Grover's AT&T cell coverage had full phone, text and web.
