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Ginsberg Point, OR | December 2020

K7WXW's picture
Summit: 
W7O/NC-025
Voice Cellular Coverage: 
Don't know
Data Cellular Coverage: 
Decent, workable
Cellular Provider: 
AT&T
APRS Coverage: 
Full two-way messaging

Summary - A long drive then a short, steep hike up to a nice meadow with a view. Good hiking shoes and trekking poles will be handy, as will GPS. Easy to make 2M contacts and APRS spots. Lots of trees for holding up wires and not a bad place to hang out for a few hours. Finding the trailhead can be a little challenging because of the unmapped roads in the vicinity and the Weyerhauser gates. Given the drive and the gates, plan on doing Ginsberg as part of a multi-summit day. (see my Trask entry).

Details - You need to negotiate another gate (after Turner Creek) to get to Ginsberg. Except for the last half mile, the route from Trask is straightforward. The company is actively logging in this area, and what was once a forest is now a clearcut. There are a bunch of newer-than-the-map roads in the area, so GPS and a good route plan will save time and energy.  At the trailhead (45.4043, -123.5022), make sure you are off the road and not on top of any newly planted trees.  The steep hike to the top is about a quarter of a mile long and 380 feet up. The summit trail cuts off the main trail to the right a short way in and is a little hard to find, at least on the way up. I missed it, went along the main trail for another thousand feet and then bushwhacked to the summit. 

In spite of the clearcut below, the summit itself is a sloping meadow with a nice view and plenty of wire-ready trees, making it a nice spot for hanging out.  I didn't work HF but VHF (5W and a half wave whip antenna) contacts into Portland and the south were easy, as was APRS spotting and RF noise was low. An easy activation in a pleasant spot, at least once you successfully navigate the maze of gates and logging roads.