Between October 21 and October 30, 2020, we visited the Sunriver / Bend areas of Oregon. The cold but clear weather allowed us to Activate 8 SOTA summits in 6 outings. This report is one of a series, and deals with the Activation of Pine Mountain, W7O/CE-058. On the same day, a few hours later, we also Activated Pine Benchmark, W7O/CE-068, which lies approximately 1.6 miles NW of Pine Mountain. That Activation will be subject of separate report.
The Pine Mountain / Pine Benchmark complex are located approximately 34 miles SE of Bend, in Central Oregon. Since the Pine Mountain complex (Deschutes National Forest), is home to the University of Oregon Pine Mountain Observatory (PMO), there is much information on-line concerning access and the facility. See: https://pmo.uoregon.edu/ Pine Benchmark, the adjacent mountain, is also a favorite takeoff for paragliders, so there are videos on YouTube depicting the area and flying. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CJakYsO1mg
Knowing our approach hike to the SOTA Activation Zone would be short, we got a relatively late start. We arrived at our alternate parking area (43.7914, -120.9340), approximately 1/2 mile past the turn off to the Observatory complex, at about 11:15 AM, and started hiking at about 11:25 AM. We could have driven an additional 1/2 mile further East on the gravel road, but chose to hike the road, as it was pleasant walking through the shady pine forest, and there was no one else around. This tacked an extra mile onto our journey. The round trip distance was 3.2 miles, with approximately 400 feet elevation gain, including some minor ups and downs. Pine Mountain is 6,509 feet elevation, with beautiful views in every direction. See map for hike particulars.
Arriving at the summit in just under an hour, I started operations on 2M without much success. I then quickly set up for 40M operations, as my XYL reminded me we still had another SOTA Activation nearby. I made a total of 7 contacts. One on 2M FM and 6 on 40M ssb. After some hot tea from our thermos, under blue skies of a Fall afternoon, we headed down to the car, and on to our next Activation.
Thank you to all of my Chasers! Log attached as picture.
