The summit is in the middle of a Christmas tree farm owned by Fox Farms. There is a graveled road (about ½ mi) to the top. There is several commercial comms at the summit and all protected by cameras. The access road is “generally” wire rope gated. The property is not posted.
INACCESABLE SUMMIT
I attempted to activate this summit and as was advised by my good friend and ex-Forest Service person K7VK that it would probably be off limits and gated. Not to be discouraged I tried anyway and found the road gated. I have no idea if this ever opens up to the public. If I find otherwise I will update this post. See attached map I made to guide me to the summit. The summit is only 7 miles off of the 130 exit of highway 90 in Montana. The black "X" is where the locked gate was. Fortunately it was at the beginning of my attempt and not 6 miles into the excursion.
An outing to Pine Mountain offers an opportunity to activate 3 summits: W7O/CE-058, W7O/CE-068, and W7O/CE-176. After activating Pine Mountain. I drove up the road to Pine Benchmark. The road at 43.80666, -120.94173 is gated, but not locked. I drove through and closed the gate behind me.
Stark Mountain with its fire lookout looks to be an easy 4 pointer as it is an easy drive-to peak on well marked Forest Service roads. However.... the last two miles of the road is gated and the summit is currently closed to the public. See the photo. I did not push it today, being tempted to just walk the two miles. It's closed due to Covid so I'll respect that. Maybe next season.
This looked like a simple drive-to peak from the topo maps. However 1.25 miles from the summit I encountered a Forest Service gate blocking the road so I walked the remaining easy road to the summit. The views are excellent but the presence of large communication towers ruined any attempt I had at getting out a signal. I'm currently just using an 5 watt handheld on 146.52 FM voice. I've connected in this way up to 50 miles in the past. I had K7VK waiting to hear from me in Missoula and although I could hear him clearly, he could not hear me.