Sunday, Oct 6
High Rock Lookout is a popular 3.5 mile RT jaunt that gains 1400 ft. I will be the seventh SOTA op to activate this peak. This location is touted by outdoor photographers as the 'cat's meow' for mountain photographs. Also, this hike seems to attract those hikers (you've seen them) with no pack or jacket and only a bottle of water.
About 35 miles from downtown Spokane, Mount Spokane (aka W7W/WE-006 Jump-off Joe) is a fixture of Eastern Washington outdoor recreation. In the summer Mount Spokane State Park is accessible for road and mountain biking, hiking, and camping. The road is open to the 5880 foot summit when there's no snow from June-Octoberish. In the winter the Mount Spokane Ski Area is a decent local hill that draws people from around Eastern Washington.
"The Twins" is a nice activation target just north of Hwy 58, east of Oakridge, Oregon. We took off 10/4 from the Willamette valley in dense fog and headed towards the Cascades to find the fog clearing by the time we reached Oakridge. The big soaking rains from the Chinese typhoon blown our way had no doubt left some snow so I checked several SNOTEL sites and found that very little snow had fallen and none was currently recorded at any of the sites I checked. Apparently, "The Twins" never bothered to check with the SNOTEL sites.
On August 19 I activated Tidbits Mountain, W7O/CM-089 - or so I thought. First let me tell you about the hike, because it’s a nice trek.
A very pleasant hike in the middle of summer. With lots of QSOs, nice weather and strong wind. As usual, I gathered information from Beckey’s book and of from the Internet for this summit too. The forest road opens from state route 410 and the upper section might require higher clearance. I think this summit is not visited very often, today I have not met with anyone.
Snipes Mountain is a fairly easy one-pointer just a short distance off I-82 east of Sunnyside, Washington. Access is by a rental car "suitable" dirt track about 1.3 miles from the West Sunnyside exit.
The road that goes near the summit would require a high clearance vehicle, and we left the rental car near the government radio site indicated by "P" in the photo below. This made for a reasonable approach hike up along the ridge road.
This not-so-epic activation took place Saturday, on probably the busiest peak in the area. The constant flow of hikers up and down the trail didn't slow down until early evening. Be prepared for lots of company on this one.
For the NASOTA weekend, I took the easy way out and went to a peak that I'd already been on, Black Butte, near Sisters, Oregon. It was just me and the sotadog "Cooper" this time so we got a 5am start to head towards central Oregon.
This was my first activation, and we had a perfect day for it on Sunday. The peak is in the Olympic National Forest and the Colonel Bob Wilderness area North of Aberdeen, WA near Quinault Lake. Two trails go to the top - the Colonel Bob Trail, and the shorter Petes Creek Trail that we used. The roads in to the trailhead were in great shape. Privy in the parking lot, no running water (except for the creek). Unfortunately, all the reports I read for the Petes Creek Trail were correct: it was a steep and almost unrelenting climb for 4+ miles.
