Blogs

If you find yourself near out of the way northeast Oregon, you might consider driving the scenic Tollgate Road between Weston and Elgin, and then activating Peak 5500 near the top of the pass. 

Peak 4940 deserves a better name - but for the time being it's a very easy to reach SOTA summit - if you are already in Wallowa County in the very northeast corner of Oregon.

Krell Hill is a 3600 foot peak to the south-east of Spokane. It's also known as Tower Mountain for reasons that are obvious to those from the area. The tower complex looms over the City of Spokane, spanning most of the ridge to the south-east of town. It hosts 3 major TV stations and numerous other transmitters. Access to the hill is either from a gated road to the south-west, or from the trail system of the Iller Creek Conservation Area to the north or southeast. Iller Creek has many hiking and biking options.

There are three Findley Buttes - East, West and 5194. The first and the last have clear public access across Nature Conservancy easements and are recommended summits in this area.

This has been the most popular SOTA activation in Oregon with about 64 activations as of October 2017. Easy to reach, it's a recommended 'first time' summit in the Portland area for new activators. The park is near 6 Nansen Summit, Lake Oswego, and parking can be found near 16 Becket Street or 3 Juarez Street, Lake Oswego.

It was a cool rainy day in Spokane. My wife Sarah, our friend Kelly, and I wanted to do a hike. And I wanted to do an activation. So we settled on a hike to Quartz Peak. Quartz Peak is another peak within the Mount Spokane State Park. The peak is right in the middle of the Mount Spokane Nordic Park, a premier location for cross-country skiing in Eastern Washington. Parking for the hike is easy. Simply park at the cross country ski area parking lot. You'll need a Discovery Pass when the ski area isn't open, and you'll need a sno-pass when the ski area is open.

This summit is only about a mile from a large parking lot on the road to the top of Marys Peak but it requires some strenuous up-hill bushwhacking from that readily accessible parking lot.  There are some old logging roads in the area, mostly grown over with bushes, that will get you close to the summit but getting to a logging road from that particular parking lot was quite a workout.  Looking at the satellite view there appears to be an easier, albeit much longer access route via a logging roads (for hiking) a bit farther to the north from where I started.

It has been foggy around here all week long. Today was a good day to rise above it all and find some sunshine! Anderson Mountain's good access, gentle trail, and easy scrambling made for a rewarding summit to play radio on! Having plenty of time on top for a change made this a very pleasant activation.

Marys Peak...(no aprostrophe is correct) why bother, everybody has been there...execpt for me. So off we went this morning after deciding to activate at 11:30pm the night before. Nothing like planning ahead. Ah, life on the edge is far more fun!

A pleasant 2.5 mile (round trip) hike with perhaps 1000 feet of elevation gain ending in an operating position with a nice view of the Columbia River Gorge. There are some subtle archaeological aspects to this summit - hikers should be aware and read the signs to avoid disturbing any 'structures.'