Exposed Trail

Here’s a near drive-up 2-point summit that might be part of your plan to visit the Redwoods in SW Oregon.

This turned out to be an easy activation. The road has some rutted sections where having a high clearance vehicle is nice but not necessary. Since we were hosting a S2S Party, 2M was no problem, but we also worked many locals on 2M. There are plenty of old Juniper snags to tie off a mast to for HF. Have fun!

See my full report here 

Summary - Sawtooth Mountain, on the north end of Indian Heaven Wilderness, is a 2.5 mile hike with 1000 feet of gain from the parking lot to the edge of the activation zone. This trip report describes getting to the summit, another hundred feet or so up, with unprotected class three and four traverses/climbing and significant exposure.

Summary - Lemi Rock, in the Indian Heaven Wilderness, combines good trails, a steep bushwhack (not for beginners), and some optional ridge scrambling.  While makes for a longish day, link it with Bird Mountain for a two summit, twelve point outing.  The trip from Portland to the Cultus Creek Campground (day fee or pass required) is about two hours on mosly paved roads.  ATT digital service is good, as is APRS.

Backpacking into North Cascades National Park (US-0055)

Backpacking into North Cascades National Park (US-0055)

Goat Mount is a nice steep ridgeline hike.  The total distance from the trail head is just over a mile with an elevation gain of 1500 feet.  The peak is line of sight to much of Portland, so 2m contacts were plentiful.  There are many nice trees for HF antennas.

This is another summit I activated with my mountain bike and in this case that turned out to be a mistake as the bushwhack to the top is very steep, very thick, and not at all fun to do in bike shorts and shoes with spd cleats in them. 

Heading into the 2024 W7O Campout weekend, I was 36 points shy of Mountain Goat. K6ARK and I hit some strategic drive ups on the way down for 10 points, and then knocked out 24 points on the Siskiyou Crest. That left me at 998 points going into Saturday. I didn't want to activate just any summit for my MG, I wanted something that called back to the mountaineering I was doing when I first got licensed and learned of SOTA.

I hiked this with Bill K7WXW and my wife as part of a two summit hike.  Bill did a good job of covering the hike.  There is lots of overgrown shrubbery on the bottom half, but it is does not rise to the level of bushwhacking at this time.  Give it a few more years wihtout trail maintenance and it will be more interesting.  This was a enjoyable hike with great views and good 2m contacts into Portland.