This is a quick update on Grass Mountain, W7O/CC-002, near Alsea, OR. In the past, this trail to a grassy meadow with nice views of the valley below was worth the time and effort.
However, the trail (actually an old logging road) has seen no maintenance for a number of years. It is very overgrown with young trees and shrubs; and it has quite a few downed trees over the trail, making passage difficult.
Powell Buttes HP is an RF intensive summit between Redmond and Prineville, OR. I believe that it is a VOR site in addition to the other typical radio equipment. It is clearly marked as off limits.
Give this one a pass.
On June 7, 2017 my wife and I were in the region east of Canyonville, OR. After enjoying Pickett Butte, we headed to Acker Rock, another rock outcrop with a lookout perched on top. Both of these are 2 point summits.
Pickett Butte is a two point summit east of Canyonville in southern Oregon. This 3296' peak has a lookout cabin on top of a 40' tower. The cabin is rented when not in fire lookout service. It was occupied on the June day we hiked up. The government guidelines specify that it is ok to hike from the locked gate to the summit when the cabin is rented. Just don't disturb the occupants. The hike from the gate to the summit was a little over 1/2 mile with 400' of elevation gain.
I was staying at The Lodge in Castle Rock State Park for a long weekend. This park is just north of City Of Rocks National Reserve which is a world class rock climbing destination. Though I am not a rock climber there are also a whole bunch of nice SOTA summits in the area. I picked CI-131 as I could see it from the front porch of The Lodge. In fact when I was on top, my wife, looking through binoculars, could see me waving at her. How often can your wife actually see you on a summit if she is not also with you?
This was the last of four Elkton, OR area summits that we explored on May 21, 2017. With a name like that, we were a bit apprehensive, but we set off along a route I traced on a topo map. It starts by turning off of Highway 38 onto Wetherly Creek Rd. This took us into an intense logging area, but no one was working on Sunday. At a significant intersection that we almost missed due to the heavy logging equipment stored there, we tried to turn toward the summit, three plus miles away.
The third of four Elkton area summits that we went after was Bell Mountain, W7O/CC-061. We tried two routes. One was based on Google Maps directions, and the other was finding a route on the USGS topo map.
The second Elkton, OR area summit on our exploration list was Saddle Butte, W7O/CC-058. The road to this summit starts near W7O/CC-80; but it looks considerably longer and more involved (I think it is called Little Tom Foley Rd). We headed out, and the road went through clearcuts and forests, but the dirt and gravel road quality was good. We felt more and more optimistic as we traveled further up into the hills.
I studied topo maps and picked out four unactivated summits in the Elkton, OR area to explore. This would hopefully yield some one-point activations to hold me over until the snow melts to the north. On May 21, 2017, Christina and I headed south.
The first summit looked to be the easiest, Hancock Hills, W7O/CC-080. It is a short distance off of Highway 38, with a road that appears to get there quickly. We found that road on the USGS topo map, and optimistically turned up to climb to the summit.
Green Mountain, W7O/CM-109, is a two-point summit above the Calapooia River drainage in Oregon. It is 4505' asl and has a lookout tower on top. At least one hiking internet site said that it should be open to access by the public. I downloaded the Google Maps directions to it and headed off Thursday morning, May 18, 2017.