Nice walk with Fascinating Views

This summit has a lot of value to it aside from the 4 points.  Its just a nice place to be.  Ample good parking at the visitor center.  Fascinating views of lava fields for the walk up the road to the top, and great views from the top.  A NW Forest Pass or day use fee is required.  The gate for the road to the top was open when I was there so you could drive to the top, however there is a 30 minute time limit for parking. Its a small parking area and busy so they keep cars rotating out.  Leaves insufficient time for SOTA-ing.   I like to spend time playing on HF so half an hour was a deal breaker for driving up.  I had planned on walking anyway.  As mentioned in other reports, the walk up is under 2 miles from the visitor center parking area and can be done in less than an hour.  The road is paved all the way up.  Its a little narrow in places so be aware of vehcile traffic.  It was somewhat busy while I was there so I found having the vertical antenna option to be very handy again so I didnt have to string out any wire.  There is a picnic table at the top so I used the clamp mount I made for the MPAS that has rubber padded jaws so as not to damage anything, threw the counterpoise under the table and off I went.  Also as mentioned in NE7ET's post, this is a POTA park.  If you are unable to make a SOTA trip out of it, there are a couple picnic benches around the visitor center parking area and this would make for a very pleasant day of operating.   I didnt combine POTA with this trip but will be back to do so at another time.  Verizon cell coverage was good and I had no trouble accessing the interwebs or using SOTA GOAT.   My total time here was about 3 hours and I had energy left so I stopped at Sylvan Park in Bend and waddled up to do Awbrey Butte, W7O/CE-213.  Its an easy 2 points with only about a 5 minute walk from the park up to the AZ.