Dear Oregon,
During these difficult times, we fully understand the desire to seek solace in the outdoors and the value of physical exertion to shed stress. However, in the interest of public health, we respectfully urge you to resist the desire and to comply with stay-at-home orders, and get exercise/outside in your neighborhood.
Mount Sylvania is a suburban drive-up site in Lake Oswego with nearly panoramic views of the West Hills, Portland, and points eastward. Directional antennas up though microwave bands do well at this site. Despite its dense residential neighborhood setting the RX noise levels observed were low. A weather station and several vertical antennas are on the summit, but I did not observe these to create any tx/rx issues on any bands I tried.
An FYI to those heading towards the coast range of Oregon; above about 2500ft there is quite a snowfall. Today I venturedup Mt. Hebo (ele, 3185ft) and found about 18+ inches of snow at the first apparent summit where all the radio towers are. There were several 4x4 trucks up there in various forms of "stuck". The last mile to the first summit was single-track and very slick. Chained up about 2mi from the summit and it was still "interesting" in my Honda Pilot 4WD. Coming down, chains were a must. It was pretty clear and about 30deg with light wind.
A long time ham friend of mine here in Boise, K7MK, introduced me to SOTA last fall. When he told me about it I said I was "All in -- lets do it!" As we await weather appropriate for Activations I have been doing some Chasing as well as studying the summit situation here in pnwSOTA. I am an naturally inquisitive person with an analyatic bent so this was a perfect topic to waste an afternoon on. I looked around for an existing summit data source but could not find one.
Spring is here and it's time to get back out there and activate. We thought it would be fun to meet up with fellow Activators and to encourage new Activators. There are a number of SOTA peaks in and around Portland and we'd like to get activators up on all of them at the same time. We could all work each other on the air and then meet up after for an 'eyeball' QSO.
Completed my second SOTA activation on Black Crater on July 23, 2013. Black Creater trailhead is located just east of McKenzie Pass on OR 242. The trailhead is well marked. Parking and the trail are both very good. Trail to the top is about four miles with about 3000ft elevation gain. Trail starts in dense forest and the forrest thins out as you go higher. There were lots of bugs at the parking lot but once on the trail, they were not a problem.