I took my kids on a snowshoeing adventure this past weekend. There were several SOTA activators scheduled to be out activating and we joined them for a fun time. The distance is around 1.7miles one way but we had very nice snow conditions.
Traffic was very heavy heading up to Mt. Hood and several vehicles turned around but we persevered and it eventually improved. It did add around 30mins to our arrival time.
Starting from the Frog Lake SNO-PARK and heading across the hwy slightly to the north is the Pacific Crest Trail crossing.
There is a post with their sign. From there we headed west on snowshoes until the sign which marks the Blue Box Trail #423 south. We followed that for a while but we were the first ones in since the last snow fall and rapidly lost the trail. I switched to following GPS and headed up ridge. The slope is somewhat steep at first and then hits a broad flat area for the remainder of the trail. We got to the summit and setup 2m J-pole on my fiberglass mast and quickly made contact with N7KOM and a bit later K7ATN, W7MTB, KJ7VTB, K7FOP. I could hear back into PDX very clearly but they could not hear me even with 80w.
After Byron KK7HWY got his contacts on 2m, I switched antennas to my EFHW and made 9 more on 20m. It started to get a bit cold at that point so we packed up and headed down. A very nice trip and highly recommended. Sadly, no bonus points for this one.