Easy Trail

Summary - 3420 (Mount Beacon) is on Weyerhauser's Longview land northwest of Merrill Lake and is most easily accessed through a gate at the end of Kalama River Road. The highway drive is roughly eighty minutes from PDX; to the trailhead, plan on another hour or so along logging roads. The hike is roughly 1.5 miles and an eight hundred foot climb and ends in a nice operating position with views to the west.  Don't count on two meters to make your four QSOs. There is no ATT cell service but APRS pings get picked up.

Full report at https://kc7ujo.blogspot.com/2022/11/activation-report-w7oce-068-pine.html

Full trip report at https://kc7ujo.blogspot.com/2022/11/activation-report-w7oce-188-lava-butte.html

Skalkaho gets its name from the area in Salish meaning ‘many trails’.  Unrelated to the name, the summit does have several trails converging near its summit.  I chose the trail coming from the west off FS road #364.  This trail has many views of other SOTA summits and to the west the much higher elevation Bitterroot Range.

When I read Etienne’s trip report ( http://www.pnwsota.org/blog/k7atn/2016-march-21/peak-2340-or-march-2016 ), I made a small error in planning my approach to 2340.  Instead of “just west of Highway 26 Rest Area” I planned for  Olson Road, which is just *east* the Hwy 26 rest area. 

Palisade Mountain is a popular hike east of Corvallis, MT. The trail system is well maintained to within 500’ of the summit. The summit is a large talus rock pile with a several oddly-located whitebark pine trees.  Evidence of the 1930s lookout still exist as some rock work and old trails in the talus. The main trail does not go to the summit though a semi-improved travel way in the talus on the west side does.

Dome Shaped Mountain is a scenic and lightly traveled trail near Hamilton Montana. Much of the hike overlooks a large portion of the Stony Mountain Roadless Area. Alpine larch dominate the summit with brilliant yellow fall color in early October contrasting with green whitebark pine.

SOTA Summit 7560 could easily be termed “Magruder Ridge High Point”. It is located on Magruder Ridge approximately 1.0 mile south of Magruder Mountain that it dominates by a mere 138’. Magruder Mountain and Ridge are named for the massacre of Lloyd Magruder and his party of four others in 1863 near this area. See sign photo.

Long Tom Mountain is a long forest road drive mostly through burned forest. The current Long Tom Lookout built in 1977 is ½ mile south of the SOTA summit.

Devils Point is a mostly open snag-covered summit with excellent views of the surrounding Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness and the Hell’s Half Acre Lookout.    Much of this area has experienced very large wildfires over the last several of decades and abundant snags exist.