Good Parking At Trailhead

I was surprised to find an accessible peak in CM that the Bend SOTA folks had not yet activated. I did the activation as a snowshoe, but you can drive up a lot closer to the summit if there is no snow.  As you ascend, the forest growth increasingly closes in, so basically, just park when you can't take any more scratching up of your paint.  It is a very pleasant 2.8 mile hike from the main road.  I've posted a GPX track you can download. I posted summit pics to SOTA Atlas.

0.5 Miles, +363 feet; Off-Trail Bushwack

NOTE: This area may have burned in July 2025. If anyone has intel, please post. I believe it may have just been the western approach side of the mountain.

Aubrey Mountain is 2 point summit near Oakridge, OR in the Willamette National Forest. The summit can be accessed either from a neighborhood at the edge of town or from a higher trailhead on the northeast side. I took the high road as described below:

Johnson Mountain is a 2 point summit near Powers, OR in the Rogue/Siskiyou National Forest. This site is the presumed location of a famous meteorite hoax detailed here. Due to a closure of Johnson Mountain Road out of Powers, we were advised to head south to China Flat campground which is a good route (detailed below).

Barklow Mountain is a 2 point summit in the Rogue/Siskiyou National Forest between Powers, OR and Port Orford, OR. The site is a former fire lookout (now gone), serviced by a disused road and a short trail. The summit area has a view to the west and plenty of space to set up a vertical or a wire. Some lookout foundation artifacts remain.

This summit was easy to reach and only 1.3 miles or so OW.  There is an antenna farm at the top but it didn't interfere significantly.

Start at the Stevens Creek Trailhead which has a nice parking lot and no permit required.  It is part of a county park a few miles south of Spokane.  The trail is pretty steep and is supposed to be closed when too muddy.

There are many large rocks near the summit which can make setting up an antenna with a clear view a little more challenging.

Peak 1980 is on Washington State DNR land approximately 1 hour, 15 minutes north of the Portland Metro area and about 6 miles south of Cougar, WA. This land requires a WA Discovery Pass.

The summit is a drive-up, but the last .75 miles is rough and a mid-clearance vehicle with AWD or better is recommended. See SOTL.AS or Sota Maps for the route GPX file. The roads in this area are not well mapped on other services and are being worked on by WA State DNR.

NOTE: The historical trailhead north of the fire station on Salmon la Sac road was closed to public access during 2024. This is an alternative route that can be used when USFS roads are still snow bound.

This write up is not intended to be a complete route description for Hex Mountain.  The main purpose is to highlight an alternate way to access the Hex Mountain trail that we believe does not cross private property.

See KJ7LSM's nice writeup of this summit. I'll only add that, in March 2025, the gate to the last leg of the road is closed (see the southernmost point of the hike,below, resulting in an 800 foot, 1.7 mile walk up the remaining gravel road. There's room for one or two vehicles at the Y in the road while still providing passage if someone with access wants to pass through the gate.