Blogs

FAIL - Not Recommended: Unless you happen to be traveling along Highway 46, I would not plan on activating this summit.

Herschberger is a lovely little lookout that you can drive nearly to the top, all but the final stairs and a little trail. The LO is basically right in the AZ so I operated sitting in the doorway (no chairs) for shade. There is zero data at the lookout but if you step out you might get lucky. Great view of CL Rim, Thielson, Rabbit Ears and many other ridges. The lookout was open and not manned. Not sure if this is common.

Weaver would possibly be a bit easier with some trail maintenance but the real challenge is the last ascent. Basically all of the 1000' gain is in the last half mile out of about 2 miles OW. Park at the trailhead for Rogue/Umpqua Divide Trail 43.04046, -122.45929. You will hike around the westside of Jackass Mountain then start hiking around the eastside of another peak between Jackass and Weaver. This is where it gets tricky. I continued down trail and then went off trail to summit and it was pretty difficult.

Old Baldy turned out to be a popular summit at the 2022 Campout. Easy short trek up an old logging road (not obvious) after you park at a dead end that ends at a memorial.Open space on summit with rock and brush. Old ruins of lookout.

You can access the TH from two different directions. You can either take Dead Indian Memorial Rd to Big Draw, Rd 2520. Take Big Draw Rd to RD 600 and turn left, or I continue on up the main road to RD 640, turn left and it turns to 600.

In my continuing series on easier/shorter approaches to summits, I found a back-side social trail to Barlow Ridge summit.

Originally I was just going to bushwack it (0.6 mile and 400' elevation gain) but upon arrival I discovered this path.

Puffer Butte is located in Washington’s Field Springs State Park in the very southeast corner of the state. The hike is less than a mile and 400 feet. There are plenty of Trees on the summit for hanging wires. I had spotty Verizon coverage. For more:

https://www.wta.org/go-hiking/hikes/puffer-butte#hike-full-description

On September 5th, I went up Stormy Mountain for its first activation since 2019. The previous trip report was useful, and I followed the same driving route. This is also the route recommended by the forest service. Google Maps tried to send me by a different route. It might have been fine, but I decided it was more prudent to stick with the human-curated recommendations.

Graham Peak had been activated twice before, but a report has not been posted. The peak overlooks The City of Rocks National Preserve with stunning views of the incredible rock formations.  If you visit the Preserve and don’t summit this peak you’ll really miss out!  Though the pictures don't show it, the views were still great even with the wildfire smoke.

The Weyerhaeuser gated entrance is about 3 miles east of the Dole Valley Rd turn from the NE Sunset Falls Rd.  It appears that Jack Mountain is located on Weyerhaeuser private property and based on the below picture of the signs, access is not allowed without a Weyerhaeuser Recreational Access Permit.  Jack Mountain is in the Yacolt Permit area.  Their website says the permits are "Sold Out".  I also saw a permit price of $300 which is beyond my SOTA budget!

I approached this one from Highway 97 off of Walker Mountain Road (this route is long and rough, I think it was over 25 miles). It can also be reached from highway 31 via NF road 2415. Would recomend this route but if your in the area to do Walker Mountain W7O/CE-030 then you can get there. I parked here (43.3581,-121.4527) with the intent of walking the forest service roads that get close to the summit per the map. What I found was, roads were overgrown and not passable. We weaved through manzanita fields trying to stay in the open trees just heading up.