Summit has good "views"
Here's an out of the way summit south of Prineville, Oregon with nice views and plenty of quiet. The drive towards the summit on Highway 27 is along the Wild and Scenic Crooked River and is lovely in itself with nice camping opportunities.
Zero Butte is just west of Condon, Oregon and is an easy drive-up summit. Take Highway 206 4.5 miles west from Condon and turn (left) west onto Richmond Road. Continue 1.5 miles to an unmarked dirt road heading off to the left. This is about where the unexpected subdivision ends and where what looks like a former military installation begins. The dirt road was easily passible in a passenger car for the 0.9 miles to a fence and a gate where the high point is located.
Grizzly Mountain is an easy drive-up summit about 9 miles west of Prineville. The views are great and the road passable in a passenger vehicle - perhaps slowly in the rocky places.
This was a joint SOTA expedition with me, Bill WA7NCL, and Rich AC7MA. See photos here:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/JWPaWiE5l7v0Vmwm2
Goat Mountain: (1.1 miles, 1,100 ft)
A GPS (with land ownership) is recommended – to help stay on the unmarked public land.
I received a note from Doug W7ZV letting me know that I had crossed private property on my hike to Wagner Mountain. In fact the SUMMIT of Wagner is apparently private property, owned by Young Life's Washington Family Ranch. The river map I was using did not indicate this, and there are no private property signs in this remote area. In short, I had no way of knowing that I would be entering private property on this hike.
Scouted the summit while in the area. Too far into the Coast Range for 2m contacts in the valley. Might be good for S2S contacts or other bands. Summit is easy to drive to approaching from the east, less than a mile off Boundary Road between the Trask & Nestucca drainages, no low-profile vehicles but anything else should be fine. Can drive right to the top, which has decent views and might make a good place to camp out.
I was in Spokane with my wife, who was presenting some research at a conference (I'm retired, she's the "breadwinner" now) and had some time to kill. I brought my KX2 along, with a QRPGuys 40m-10m UnUnTenna. This is a fairly simple antenna, with wire mated to a 9:1 unun, and takes a bnc coax jumper from the KX2. After a hike up from the parking area, I found a good place to set up, and threw a messenger line up into a tree. It was then that I realized I had not remembered to bring the coax jumper. This really deflated me. All that effort, and there was to be no activation.
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:
https://youtu.be/wEc5C1NV1F0
It was a beautiful sunny day and we had the mountain to ourselves. Snow conditions were great - we were on snow the entire hike but did not need snowshoes. It was about as perfect as an early spring activation could possibly be! Compared to our last activation (Sky Mountain) this was a walk in the park.
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.
