Exposed Summit

Peak 1980 is on Washington State DNR land approximately 1 hour, 15 minutes north of the Portland Metro area and about 6 miles south of Cougar, WA. This land requires a WA Discovery Pass.

The summit is a drive-up, but the last .75 miles is rough and a mid-clearance vehicle with AWD or better is recommended. See SOTL.AS or Sota Maps for the route GPX file.

There are a few trees remaining for a wire and open space for a vertical. I made one contact on 2m into the Portland Metro during a weekday morning using a half wave whip. You should do better on the weekend.

See KJ7LSM's nice writeup of this summit. I'll only add that, in March 2025, the gate to the last leg of the road is closed (see the southernmost point of the hike,below, resulting in an 800 foot, 1.7 mile walk up the remaining gravel road. There's room for one or two vehicles at the Y in the road while still providing passage if someone with access wants to pass through the gate.

UPDATE: the instructions given by Bill WJ7WJ in A Good Hand of Pinochle are still accurate.  However, when I was up there last week, there were several trees that had blown over the road and only some of them had been cleared.  I had forgotten to bring the chainsaw and they were too thick to cut with my bow saw.

Getting there: The route is quite straighforward. As of October 2024, it is possible to drive the 1/2 mile up the brushed-in logging road from the 5800 road to where the old road grade peels off. There is parking for two vehicles at the start of the bushwhack. 

A drive-up on quite good gravel roads (see below), with great views in all directions (fully logged following forest fire a few years ago).

I came in from the West, leaving the paved road at 44.97599, -122.50586. These subsequent gravel roads were good enough for any passenger car. Just watch for big rocks on the road. There's not much to say about this road. There were very few gates, and I didn't notice any signage near them (unlike below).

From Lake Wenatchee, travel north on Forest Service Road 6200. The Carne Mountain trailhead is at the end of a 13-mile dirt road. The first 11 miles are rough, but the last 2 have recently been regraded and are quite decent. A high clearance vehicle is recommended, although we made it in our low clearance campervan. No pass is required and we slept at the trailhead to get an early start the next morning. The parking lot is small, and people park on the side of the road when the lot is full. It can be difficult to turn around if people park on both sides.

This turned out to be an easy activation. The road has some rutted sections where having a high clearance vehicle is nice but not necessary. Since we were hosting a S2S Party, 2M was no problem, but we also worked many locals on 2M. There are plenty of old Juniper snags to tie off a mast to for HF. Have fun!

See my full report here 

Having approached this area from both the West and the East, I strongly suggest that you get here from the East, by driving through Carson and driving up the 42 road to where it meets with the 53 road. The route from the West is technically shorter if you're coming from the Portland area, but unless you live in Battle Ground, it's not worth it. The roads from that direction are just too bumpy and grown over. It takes longer and it beats up your vehicle.

This is a stretch for a PNWSOTA summit report but, if you find yourself in Seoul with a few hours to kill, this could help you navigate.  My son and I were able to activate this summit after doing the normal tourist activities.

Summary - Sawtooth Mountain, on the north end of Indian Heaven Wilderness, is a 2.5 mile hike with 1000 feet of gain from the parking lot to the edge of the activation zone. This trip report describes getting to the summit, another hundred feet or so up, with unprotected class three and four traverses/climbing and significant exposure.