Blogs

Cline Buttes is a moderate hike/ride, depending on your approach. The traditional mtb route is to start off the quarry road on the east side and climb the Cline Butte XC Trail around the west side interconnecting with FAA access road to the summit. There is a short cut near the summit that keeps you on the west side of the butte and drops you out right at several big rocks that are in the AZ and can provide some wind protection. 2M can work well but having had one failed activation for lack of 2M contacts, I highly suggest bringing and HF rig as well.

Baldy Peak was a wonderful and pleasant surprise. I recommend it. The minimum hike is 1.2 miles round trip with about 650’ vertical.  The hike can be extended by parking a bit further down B-1000 and hiking up the Buck Creek trail. 

 The route I took to 2700 – Circuit Peak was 3.6 miles round trip with 1100’ vertical.  It was a combination of forest road walking and moderate bushwhacking. I think it may take a few activators summiting to get the best route to the top identified. There are smaller ridgelines and drainages not shown on the topo maps, and it may be possible to follow the old roadbed nearly all the way to the summit.

Summit 2260 is located in the Tillamook State Forest (TSF), 4 miles NE of Bay City.  There are other summits in the NC region with the same name, so this is specific to W7O/NC-101.  I completed it’s first activation in February 2023.  

Summary - Summiting Monte Carlo in the winter is easy as long as you are good with an eight mile round trip with a 3000 foot climb.  The first three or so miles of the hike is on a maintained forest road through open, old forest. The remainder is the steepest and roughest part of the hike, with big tree fall and some cross country travel.  Your reward for taking on the challenge is a quiet, open summit ringed by old growth trees.  Drive time from Portland is about 80 minutes across the Hood River toll bridge.

Lava Butte is closed to vehicles in the winter, but open for hiking. You can park at the closed visitor center, or there's an option to pull off 97 near where the Lava Butte road passes the highway. From here there's a very short trail through the brush and you're on the road. We did this option which puts the hike at about 1.2 mi and 540' gain. 

The road was mostly clear of snow and ice, with just a handful of spots that had it. We did not need the microspikes we brought in our packs, but had the temps been colder, they would've been neccessary in some spots. 

Overview

For this activation, I followed the recommendation made by N7LF in

Hershberger is a lovely little lookout with a great 360 view, Crater Rim, Rabbit Ears, etc. I went when it was very hot, after I did a difficult hike up Weaver Mountain. The lookout is just in the AZ and I took advantage of a bit of shelter from the sun and the rails to erect my mast. Poor data service at the LO but I think I had service if I walked a little ways away from it.

Two years late with summary so from foggy memory... Mount Stella was a straight forward hike up a blocked road. There is an old wooden lookout at the top. I did this on my way home from doing Mt. Scott and Dutton in CLNP with K7ATN and WW7D. If I recall correctly there is zero data service as this was not on my original agenda and I could not spot or do an alert. Luckily ATN and Darryl were still near and there were a group of hams contracted for communication repair at a fire lookout up north that could copy me also on my 2m HT. Plenty of room to set up.

This is an alternate summit route to what W6PZA wrote up here:  http://www.pnwsota.org/blog/w6pza/2020-november-30/summit-4420-or-november-2020 .  You can take the Cole Loop Trail 854 that crosses the road near the second gate on the road going up to Gray Butte.