This was a wonderful day for an activation of Scott Mountain. The trailhead is reached by taking the turnoff for Scott Lake Campground off of OR242 a few miles west of the Dee Wright Observatory. Follow the gravel road past all the campsites to the quarry at the end of the road. There are two trails that start from there. Take the Benson Trail 3402 to go most directly to Scott Mountain.
The trail up is about 4 miles of very nicely graded trail that passes some beautiful lakes. Mosquitos/flies were active and DEET was required. We still got several bites. The trail is very gradual until reaching the start of the climb up to Scott Mountain. Benson lake and the Tenas Lakes have good swimming and fishing. Apparently, worms work best according to those we met.
We reached the summit in 2hr 20 minutes including photo, dog, and bio breaks. The summit does have some good size trees but are not very conveniently spaced for dipoles. I used my usual 10 meter pole with EFHW. There are plenty of scrub trees and stumps to lash your vertical pole to.
I put up a tarp for shade under some short scrub trees and easily established a confortable operating position. On these fairly exposed peaks, the tarp is well worth the weight. The Sierra at 5W with the new Li-Ion battery worked well. My keyer/paddle was a real bugger. It kept sending random junk while I was trying send forcing me to use the paddle as a stright key. Pretty awkawrd. Really folks, I can send better than I sounded! Got to get that keyer/paddle fixed.
Worked about 18 stations as far away as NC. It was a great day. Beautiful day to be in the montains. Life is good.
