Shady Trail

Skookum Butte is an old US Forest Service lookout at 7215’ on the Idaho/Montana border. The summit and lookout rests on massive granite boulders. Not having enough room at the lookout to secure our long wire antenna, K7PX Steve secured one end of the End Feed Long Wire to the top boulder, pitched the other end over the cliff and operated the antenna from below as a sloper. The lookout offers a fine view of the northeast end of the Selway Bitterroot Wilderness.

Birkenfeld Mountain is a summit that can be done as part of a challenging three peak traverse that would include Three Corner Rock-W7W/LC-101 and Greenleaf Peak-W7W/LC-104.

Wind Mountain is a nice hike in the Gorge with good views (in clear weather). It's about 2.5 miles round-trip and 1000 feet of gain. There's no pass required at the trailhead and it's often less busy than nearby Dog Mountain.

Head east on Highway 14 from Stevenson, Washington about 6.2 miles to Home Valley. Then turn onto Wind Mountain Road for 1.0 miles to turn right onto Girl Scout Road and go about 0.6 miles. This leads to a large dirt parking area at the end of the paving near 45.7145°, -121.7533°. This is usually the best place to park.

Peak 4816 is a near drive-up summit a bit east of Mount Hood, accessed mostly on paved Forest Service roads. The summit area has an small but interesting rock pinnacle. You should consider this summit in the Mount Hood 2m FM "dead zone" as we were not able to raise anyone on 146.52 except a sked with a nearby S2S.

Peavine Mountain is a drive-up summit a bit east of Mount Hood, accessed mostly on paved Forest Service roads. You should consider this summit in the Mount Hood 2m FM "dead zone" as we were not able to raise anyone on 146.52, even after begging on the Mt. Hood repeater.

Travel on Highway 6, and turn north onto Cedar Butte Road between milepost 17 and 18. Drive over the bridge and continue straight at the Muesial Creek Road junction (0.1 mile). There are signs at each junction that direct you to the Cedar Butte Trailhead, however, mark your mileage here and watch for posted signs. The trailhead is about 5.5 miles from this point, although the sign says 5.7. At 2.0 miles turn right at the “Y” intersection. At 4.8 miles, the Cedar Butte Road veers left.

This summit had never been activated and I now know why!  The USGS maps would have you believe there is a road to the summit.  There actually was a road when the forestry lookout was standing, but the last 1-1/2 miles of road is now overgrown and would take some guts and a great off-road 4-wheeler to traverse it.  These same last miles are steep and unrelenting, though completely forested.  When the so-called road ends. there are a few hundred feet of vertical trail required to reach the summt.

This is a quick update on Grass Mountain, W7O/CC-002, near Alsea, OR. In the past, this trail to a grassy meadow with nice views of the valley below was worth the time and effort.

On a family vacation to the Lake Tahoe Basin in Nevada and California, I was fortunate enough to Activate 4 peaks in 3 days.  This is a description of the Mount Watson Activation, number 2 in the series.  On this Activation I had the pleasure of meeting up with a "local" Activator from Reno, Nevada, K1LB - "Woody" Brown, so that we could do a joint Activation of Watson.