King Mountain is a drive up off of US-395 between John Day and Burns.
To get there turn east off of 395 at 43.7862, -118.8654 onto good gravel road 2820.
Stay on this road until the turn up to king at 43.7872, -118.8655.
It is now approximately 2.5 miles and 700 feet of gain to the top. We were able to drive all of it in our Rav4. Plenty of parking opportunities so you can drive as far as you and your vehicle are comfortable.
GPX for this road available at Sotl.as.
There is no poison oak on this summit, at least not that I was able to identify, and it is my mortal enemy, so I've gotten pretty good at predicting where I'll find it and identifying it from an appreciable distance. I just wanted to clarify that as a previous post claimed to have encountered poison oak.
This summit is a horrible bushwhack, and like many of the summits in this part of the Gifford Pinchot, it's barely worth the points considering the effort it takes to climb it. It's steep and brushy and about the only nice thing I can say about it is there's no devil's club to contend with. You would think, upon finally obtaining the activation zone, that the return trip would be easier, but it is not. It's worse because you can't see where you're putting your feet.
Per WW7D there are numerous ways to get to Ski Acres Hill, including walking up the ski slopes. The ski area is open to hikers in the summer.
The "back way" from Hyak involves navigating some gnarly FS roads and does not involve going on any private property. The PCT also passes 1/3 of a mile (and 1000' gain) to the west of the summit. One could take the PCT and bushwhack up to the summit.
For he last two activations the back way from Hyak was used.It was all FS roads to the start of the (same) short bushwhack. There were no closed gates either way.
Sawtooth is a glorious peak; nice hike, interesting rocky summit and great 360 views.
There are multiple hikes to reach Sawtooth. I took a route from the west, following the High Divide trail to the Windy Pass trail. This was the approach with both the shortest drive time and hike (from Diamond lake). It was 4 miles and 1700ft one way. It does seem to be a less commonly followed route, though the trails are maintained.
There is a SW “short cut” for Huffman peak by taking the well maintained logging roads in Washington DNR land and following the unmaintained hiking trail 126. 1.5 miles and 1000ft total elevation one way. (Note that there is some up and down here, with 400 ft down included, meaning you’ll have that much on the way back).
Moderate bushwhack with almost 500ft of gain over 0.6 miles. It might be light bushwhack if you pick the right path, as I found the way down easier through more open forest when one could see it. There is *almost* a view peaking through the trees at the top. Enough space for an activator on the true summit, but multiple could potentially spread out a bit off to the side still in the AZ.
Here is a shortcut to Big Huckleberry relative to that described here: http://www.pnwsota.org/node/371
Howlock Mountain had caught my eye during the 2023 W7O Campout. It was an unactivated summit off trail north of Thielsen and south of Tipsoo. For 2025, Adam K6ARK and Mark KD7DTS proposed doing the ridge traverse from Tipsoo (W7O/CS-195). After some VHF shenanigans on Tipsoo, we backtracked on the trail briefly before leaving it and descending south.