Why

With the first four peaks in Cascades North being activated, I decided I needed to hatch a plan to hit the next two. This summit is over 8 miles from the nearest trailhead and 4500 feet of gain, and it's almost 5000 feet of gain from our trailhead, so I recommend doing it as an overnight. We activated this peak in conjunction with South Cinder, W7O/CN-005, and I strongly recommend if you put in the effort to do one that you make time for the other.

Why

With the first four peaks in Cascades North being activated, I decided I needed to hatch a plan to hit the next two. This summit is over 7 miles from the nearest trailhead and 3300 feet of gain, and it's 4000 feet of gain from our trailhead, so I recommend doing it as an overnight. We activated this peak in conjunction with North Cinder, W7O/CN-006, and I strongly recommend if you put in the effort to do one that you make time for the other.

Summit 5230 is located 23 miles (as the crow flies) South of Pendleton, OR.  If you have the right vehicle and can tolerate a long bumpy ride in, this can be a drive up summit.  It would make an excellent mountain bike-based activation. I would not attempt this summit without a GPS.

We didn't see any swamps, and it certainly wasn't swamped with people!

Getting to the trailhead was straighforward by following the directions at https://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/willamette/recarea/?recid=80972.

Our first snow of the year. I have done all the 8 point summits in the upper Dungeness area that I can get to with a day hike except this one. It seemed like a relatively easy one, 6 miles in with a half mile off trail to the summit. It was a good day for it. About a foot of power snow at the summit, but the ground under the snow wasn't  frozen yet, so I could still get good traction without crampons. 

WW7D and I were in the area for the WA State QSO party 'Salmon Run'. This was the 2nd summit we activated on this fine sunny day in Sept!

D-Layer is a great summit!! I guess I had low expectations based on the intel we had, but it is a really nice summit with a great view to the east. 

I like big buttes, and I can not lie...  

I don't have much to add that K7NIT didn't already cover in her excellent report.

WW7D and I were in the area for the WA State QSO party (Salmon Run). This was the 2nd summit we did on this extremely wet Sunday in late Sept.

The road up to West Twin Butte is really fun... if you are on a motorcycle! The last 1/2 mile of this road is heavily rutted out, and would be a challenge for a high-clearence 4x4. Most people will probably opt to park lower down and walk up the road.

WW7D and I were in Skamania County for the WA state QSO party (Salmon Run). This was one of two summits we visited on Sunday of that weekend. Neither of us realized it at the time, but this was the first activation of this summit.

Termination Point is a great little summit! There is a steep boot path from the end of the road up to the summit - a little faint and bushwhacky in some spots. The hike is very short - something like 1/2 mile and ~100' of elevation gain.