Pilot Knob is a quiet peak inside the boundary of the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, and a stone's throw away from the Pacific Crest Trail. The approach is just short of 2 miles one-way, with some travel on an old trail and some bushwhacking.
The drive is about 1 hour and 15 to 30 minutes from somewhere in Portland. The hike is about 2 miles one-way with 1300' elevation gain and took about 1.5 hours to complete in the dry season.
Round top is drive + short hike on a logging road. It offers clear decent views with plenty of space to spread out your gear. The road became impassble due to snow about 1.5 miles from the summit (with an AWD Subaru). So this added about an extra mile trudging through snow (6-18") that we hadn’t anticipated, but it was a nice day and the walk up was quite nice really. Elevation gain for the hike was about 500ft.
Maidenhead Mtn (W7W Summit 1930) is accessible with a 1.5 mile (800 ft vertical) hike up an abandoned Forest Service Road bed. The road bed is overgrown with trees that look around 8 years old. There is a trail that is established for about 50% of the way. The second half of the route has a significant amount of blowdown and really slows you.
Dennie Ahl Hill is due west of Hoodsport WA. We used Google maps from Shelton and it routed us correctly. Our route was "priusable" with some potholes that are navigatable. It has a wide activation zone and FM into the Seattle area is doable. I set up HF to get some S2S, trees around the perimeter make it easy to set up a mast and you can easily lounge in a chair in the flat area. Easy Peazy summit.
TL;DR - Cornell Mountain is on private property but the activation zone extends to the public right-of-way, so this is a side-of-the-street activation. You might be able to activate on HF with appropriate gear but expect the locals to give you the stinkeye if you spend much time loitering.
First of all Brian, AB6D was the first on this mountain. New updates and advanced accuracy apparently changed the true summit to the NE peak rather than the SW. I wouldn't have gone if I hadn't read his summary. Same mountain, nearly same trek, just a slightly different finish.
This was #4 of 4 in a day. Battle Mountain on a map looks like it is a drive up but it is not. It is mostly a burn scar and the original lookout road (lookout is gone) has been bermed. It is a very nice summit on top. Flat, open but big timber for shade and a view. Lookout ruins, footings. Getting up was not easy though.
This was #3 of 4 summits in a day up May Creek. This was a little difficult set up. Crowded brush and timber. One thing to realize is the NE peak is also in the AZ, the saddle doesn't drop below the AZ mark. I just hiked up the this peak. It is steep country and once you reach the AZ it is very thick. Luckily the NNW ridge up the NE peak has been thinned and fuel break up to the BLM boundary so you can trek most of the way with little bushwhack.
This was summit #2 for the day after SC-102. You could do neighboring Black Butte also, I just missed the turn and went to this one first. Nice short trek up the forested west ridge from a wide parking/camping area with large fire ring. Only about .30 mi up. Plenty of space to set up. Pretty flat with timber. One interesting thing with the AZ here is all maps say this summit is over 3600', not 3580'. However the trek is so easy and short getting to the top is not difficult.
This summit gets its name from its other peak outside of the AZ, it is not Bald and pretty thick brush, skinny timber/madrone. Not the easiest set up but doable.Great road up, paved first miles on May Creek and then right on Bald Mt Rd. No sign, the turn goes over a the creek with a drain pond on the left, at least in April. Drive up to AZ and find a location up bank to activate.
Bald Mt was #1 of 4 in a full day of activation
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