I will be on a 5 day rafting trip on the John Day River in Central Oregon from April 17th - 21st with my boy scout troop. I plan to do a few SOTA activations during the trip, and also participate in 'QRP to the field' on the 21st. We are putting in at Service Creek and ending near Clarno. I will post some SOTA alerts before I leave, but the times are likely to be completely wrong!

Coming up on Saturday, April 21 2018 is a QRP and SOTA event – with Rivers as a bonus! It’s QRP to the Field, or QRP TTF, an annual party for taking your radio outdoors. The ‘theme’ for 2018 is rivers – you could think of it as “Rivers on the Air”.

A one point summit that you might want to do along with close by Cedar Butte, Triangulation Point, Blue Ridge or Peak 2300.

Myself and AC7MA set off to activate Hex Mountain (1534m, 6 Points + 3 winter bonus) this past Tuesday (20th March). Here is a short video I made at the summit:

In looking at peaks near my QTH that had not been activated yet, I noticed Long Mountain (W7O/NC-034).  There were no notes on the peak’s page warning of issues and from examing the maps, it appeared that it may be a fairly routine exercise to get to the summit which is just north of Green Mountain.

Planned on a camping trip for a few weeks to the area so I'd scouted out the summits on the map and noted routes in. Our orignal plan was to camp at and activate W7O/CE-265 - 6057 but in the weeks leading up to the trip, lots of snow had fallen in the higher elevations.

Good parking along the road in a pullout (during winter).  Note for winter ascents, stay left of the track at the bottom so you keep high.  Do not go right into the quarry as you will need to climb out.  We had to snowshoe up mud!  We stayed high on the descent.  On your climb up, work your way to the left hand summit ridge.  No trail and steep, but doable.  Metal posts at the top to strap antenna to.  Great views

In the summer you may be able to drive into the gravel quarry and take other ridgelines.

This is becoming a popular summit and may be one of the most accessable summits in the Boise area.  This is about an hour drive from Boise however.  The parking is always good as they plow the side road next to Little Camas Reservoir.  Snowmobile activity is present in the winter and also park along the road.  The snowmobile tracks can help with a winter track up the lower slopes.

In the summer, this track (below) can be used, but a shorter/direct route can be found if you park in a pull-out SW of the summit on Hwy20.

I took advantage of the great weather to take a stroll up Squak mountain with a friend and my son. The activation zone is a nice, wide, clear gravel area. This was my first activation on HF and with a new radio. Needless to say I was a little nervous about being able to make any contacts at all. It did take a while for anyone to come back to me, but I pretty quickly made 5 contacts on 20m and one on 40m. Not bad for my first time playing around on HF!

Mount Solo on the west side of Longview, Washington off Highway 432 is posted "No Trespassing." Solo View Drive that heads towards the summit is a private road and has a gate.