NE7ET's blog

I took my kids on a snowshoeing adventure this past weekend.  There were several SOTA activators scheduled to be out activating and we joined them for a fun time.  The distance is around 1.7miles one way but we had very nice snow conditions.

Traffic was very heavy heading up to Mt. Hood and several vehicles turned around but we persevered and it eventually improved.  It did add around 30mins to our arrival time.

Starting from the Frog Lake SNO-PARK and heading across the hwy slightly to the north is the Pacific Crest Trail crossing.

UPDATE March 2023: W7W/CN-024 has been retired and replaced by Frog Lake ButtesW7O/CN

On a recent trip to Idaho, I had the opportunity to activate Bernard Peak which is a drive up 45min or so from Coeur d'Alene.

The drive up was uneventful, though some sections of the road have quite a few potholes and washboards.  I managed it in my wife's Toyota Highlander.

In my continuing series on easier/shorter approaches to summits, I found a back-side social trail to Barlow Ridge summit.

Originally I was just going to bushwack it (0.6 mile and 400' elevation gain) but upon arrival I discovered this path.

On a recent trip to Riffe Lake, I had the opportunity to activate this summit.

On a recent camping trip to Riffe Lake, I activated this summit after activating Burley Mountain (W7W/PL-039).  See my other trip report for directions to get there.

On the way over to Bend, I stopped to activate Black Butte.  I came on Hwy 20 and turned at NF-11 which is also the turn for Indian Ford Campground.  From there I followed north to the turn for NF-1110 (also known as Black Butte Rd) and on around the north of the mountain.  After a hairpin turn, there is one more sharp turn to the right which takes you to the upper trailhead.  The road up to the last turn was in good shape as of this writing.  The upper portion after the last turn was not as good but still very drivable.

This was my first summit on the day of the Central Oregon S2S party.

I had spent the night at the Pine Mountain Observatory Campgrounds which is FCFS so get there early.  If it's full, there are dispersed locations but it's hard to find one in the pitch black dark.  The observatory requires no headlights (only running lights) at the top so take that into account.

In the morning, I drove back down NF-2017 to the trailhead which also double as a cattle watering station.

This was my second summit for the day of the Central Oregon S2S party.

I had spent the night at the Pine Mountain Observatory Campgrounds which is FCFS so get there early.  If it's full, there are dispersed locations but it's hard to find one in the pitch black dark.  The observatory requires no headlights (only running lights) at the top so take that into account.

This was my 3rd summit while over in Bend area for Central Oregon S2S party.

I had activated Pine Benchmark and Pine Mountain earlier in the day and I drove from there. I took NF-2017 from the Observatory down to the valley.  However, that road is in very poor shape and high clearance is needed if you go that way. (If starting at the Observatory, travel time going back to Highway 30 to Road 23 is likely similar to taking rocky NF-2017 south).