Easy Trail

Clarks Mountain is just south of Seaside Oregon. The trail is about 1.8 miles of one-way hiking starting at a clearly marked trailhead on the very south end of town on Sunset Blvd.

Scouting Report

TL;DR version: Parking for one or two rigs outside the gate.  Broken rock road to lookout, 2.75 miles, path to true summit forks off from LO road at ~ last 1/4 mile.  LO area was forested, true summit likely is also.  Good opportunities for hanging wire, limited view.  All in all, a lovely walk in the forest.

(NOTE: This report covers both Shafer Butte W7I/BC-064 and W7I/BC-070. It is posted twice so that it can link to both summit references on pnwSOTA and SOTAWatch.)

(NOTE: This report covers both Shafer Butte W7I/BC-064 and W7I/BC-070. It is posted twice so that it can link to both summit references on pnwSOTA and SOTAWatch.)

For anyone heading up to Mount Hood or headed from Portland into Central Oregon, Clear Lake Butte would be a nice stop on the way. It's a well graded and mostly paved forest road, suitable for biking or bringing along those that aren't big hikers. And no one would mind arriving at a classic fire lookout.

Stack Rock has become more accessible over the last few years due to private land being converted to public access.  A private donation made it possible for the Land Trust of the Treasure Valley to purchase private land around and on the way to Stack Rock.  More information here at this LINK.  The trail is widely used by hikers, mountain bikers and is now used by those that have drank the SOTA Kool-Aid!

The payoff for this relatively short non-technical summit is huge!  Fantastic 360° views from the summit.  Closest prominent peaks include, Mount Baring, Glacier Peak and the Monte Cristo Group.  I'd been to the summit of Beckler several times prior to learning of SOTA. I recalled the location of Beckler Peak was quite remote; there are no major towns within a 40 mile radius of the peak, and, Beckler is surrounded by many higher peaks.

Nice weather, good company and a successful Activation (including a summit to summit contact with VE7DB on VE7/FV-024) were high points.  The route was not terribly ascetic, and the summit block is a large pile of Basalt talus.  We elected to operate from the false summit to the southeast of the summit block. This was a joint Activation with Tim Nair, KG7EJT.  Joining us was Masako, Tim's wife and Sharon, my wife.  Rounding out the crew was Dexter the SOTA Dog.

UPDATE July 2020: Elk Rock has been posted "No Trespassing" by Weyerhauser. See sign below.

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This was my first attempt to activate a summit and all of this is a first attempt in terms of planning, tools used, the template I used to write this, etc. Let me know  if there are other things you want to know about for future summits.

Reprise on Jester Mountain, exactly 8 months later.  We originally activated Jester on September 3, 2014.  This time I returned with a different crew, and in a different season: Spring.  The flowers were out, the views were incredible as usual, and the weather was sunny, with a slight cooling breeze which kept it very pleasant.  Good company, successful Activation and sections of beautiful flower blooms made for a very nice outing.