This activation begins by getting to the Joaquin Miller Trail Head off of US-395 south of John Day Oregon. Interestingly Google Maps shows this trailhead and the roads to it, but does not provide driving directions to it. My Garmin road GPS did get us there and the driving directions are on the FS website here: https://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/malheur/recreation/hunting/recarea/?recid=39958&actid=54 .
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.
On a recent camping trip to Riffe Lake, I activated this summit after activating Burley Mountain (W7W/PL-039). See my other trip report for directions to get there.
This was my 3rd summit while over in Bend area for Central Oregon S2S party.
I had activated Pine Benchmark and Pine Mountain earlier in the day and I drove from there. I took NF-2017 from the Observatory down to the valley. However, that road is in very poor shape and high clearance is needed if you go that way. (If starting at the Observatory, travel time going back to Highway 30 to Road 23 is likely similar to taking rocky NF-2017 south).
The summit is in pretty much the same shape as previous report linked by Etienne K7ATN.
I did Page on my way back from Althouse and Tanner. I figured I had some time and it appeared to be a driveup. I also am in no hurry to come back to this charred land. Page wasn't as badly burned, it is basically the area they stopped the SLater Fire in 2020 from reaching into Cave Junction. The fire burned part of Happy Camp and everything inbetween.
Went to Little Applegate after Applegate. It was a jeep road the last bit on RD 4513-300, off of road 4518. I started the hike up at 42.68112, -121.70485. There is a bit of an open path up to the summit using an old grown over road. Easy trek, about 1mi RT. The mountains around here are some of my favorite to hike because of the ground. Most everywhere is a layer of pine needles over pumice so it is like walking on a soft cushioned ground.
Applegate Butte is a drive up summit with equipment on top. There are a couple nice flats to set up in between two areas of equipment. I had zero issue with RFI doing hf. We came here from Soloman Butte so not a typical route, taking some of the east side roads from Soloman over to Applegate. Most roads were ok other than on Soloman. Probably the easiest access is from Road 600 east of Chiloquin and then take RD 4510 north.
de AG7GP
Solomon Butte on a map looks like it has roads going everywhere but it really doesn't. To get to a good start you will want to get to RD 4504 that somewhat circles the summit part way up. This is a jeep road with some tight pin striping opportunity in some areas and soft pumice your tires will sink in in other portions.