Blogs

On the Hart Mountain Antelope Refuge in southern Oregon, Warner Peak is a nice 3.4 mile one-way road walk. Although the trailhead is not that easy to reach and the Refuge is one of the most remote places in the state. You'll want a high clearance vehicle for these roads. From Refuge Headquarters, head south on Blue Sky Road for 14 miles - it starts out heading south and then turns towards the west. Near 42.4298° -119.723° turn left and continue about 0.7 miles to a ford.

These directions are somewhat vague, because I don't recall exactly how we got there on the maze of Forest Roads. A GPS will be your best bet to get close.

From Lakeview, Oregon take Oregon Highway 140 north toward Paisley. Following Hwy 140, turn right onto Hwy 140 east toward Adel. Turn left onto Forest Service (FS) Road 3615 traveling north about 6.8 miles and pass the right turn to FS Road 019 (this leads to Light and Drake Peaks). Continue on FS Road 3615 about 3.2 miles to a road leading off to the right near   42.316° -120.168°. From here you are kinda on your own - you may find a good place to park about 0.6 miles up one of the dirt tracks - perhaps near   42.321° -120.1595°.

Follow the directions to the Drake Peak Lookout that is located on Light Peak W7O/CE-004. Head up on foot the 1/3 mile towards Light Peak and watch for the faint road heading east just below the summit.  This is a cross-country route of about 3 miles RT. A GPS may be very useful to find the peak. Although it may look shorter to veer off the road on the return trip to slightly shorten the trip, I'd suggest staying with the road. The rocky peak has a few small trees for supporting poles and antennas.

Light Peak is located about one hour northeast of Lakeview, Oregon and features the Drake Peak Lookout that can be rented in summer. (Yes, Drake Peak Lookout is on the shoulder of Light Peak and not on Drake Peak...)

This afternoon was another attempt to reach a non-activated summit.  Good roads in from the south, but unfortunaly, private land that was very well marked by brightly colored fence posts every 50-100 feet for miles and miles. 

Looking up at the peak, I could see no other fence lines, so my guess is the summit is privately owned as well.

Oh well, at least I can forget about this one and move on to other known accessible peaks.

I decided to head to the town of Emmett, ID to check out of couple of summits.  First on the list was Peak 3410 which is on BLM land.  Unfortunately, to get there is a bit of a challenge and I was stopped early on in the trip, about 5 miles away.  It was the start of a dirt road with a very clearly marked "No Tresspassing" sign.  

It would be interesting to see if there is a way in from the north, maybe via Big Willow and Sucker Creek Roads, but that will have to be a trip on another day.

This is one of the last holdouts near Portland! After a successful first activation by AF7MD on W7O/NC-082, and the previous activation last year of W7O/NC-085 by WJ7WJ, I thought it was high time to bag this one before anyone else got to it!

It's about time I wrote this one up, almost a year after.

This peak stood out as one of the remaining peaks on private or questionably accessible land at the beginning of 2019, in the Portland metro area.

I love Bald Mountain. Not sure what it is about this gem. Maybe just like Wagner Butte and Grizzly Peak, it's a mountain I stare and gaze at frequently. It is the view from our ranch meadow (Brickpile Ranch) so again one of those mountains I wanted to hike but never did until SOTA. Each activation I have done from a different areas since it is a long summit, only once have I took the trail. If feeling ambitious I recommend doing Point Mountain or Anderson Butte same day.