Exposed Summit

Fish Creek Mountain is a 6.3 mile RT hike with 2300 feet of elevation gain.

Access to the trail head is on good roads, mostly paved with good gravel for the final bit.

Forbidden Peak is a ten point summit that is one of the most popular rock climbing objectives in the Cascade mountains. The summit can be approached from three ridges, with the West Ridge being the easiest and most frequently climbed. The West Ridge is famous for high-exposure, high quality 4th and easy 5th class climbing and a crux at 5.6. It is listed in the 1979 climbing guidebook "Fifty Classic Climbs of North America" by Steve Roper and Allen Steck.

3914, SE-178 is a non-prominent prominence located near nothing, well between Vale Oregon and Lake Owyhee Reservoir. For a real 4x4 it’s a drive up, but the ruts became to deep for our Rav4 (eight inches of clearance.) The road we took was not on a map and the road were looking for that was on the map wasn’t discoverable by us on the ground. As you can see from the track attached to sotl.as there is almost no elevation gain. The summit is a long ridge in a bumpy landscape. We had difficulty figuring out which lump it was.

Sawtooth is a glorious peak; nice hik

Howlock Mountain had caught my eye during the 2023 W7O Campout. It was an unactivated summit off trail north of Thielsen and south of Tipsoo. For 2025, Adam K6ARK and Mark KD7DTS proposed doing the ridge traverse from Tipsoo (W7O/CS-195). After some VHF shenanigans on Tipsoo, we backtracked on the trail briefly before leaving it and descending south. 

See http://www.pnwsota.org/blog/k7agl/2025-june-30/jumbo-peak-wa-june-2025 for the write up of Sunrise and Jumbo Peaks double activation.

The double summit activation of Sunrise Peak and Jumbo Peak is under 9 miles RT and 3500 feet vertical climbing. My milage was off a bit due to probing for a south approach on Jumbo. There are a number of trip reports floating around on the web, I would rate this activation as an “advanced” SOTA adventure. I started from Sunrise TH 262. Google Maps routed me to this TH with no issues. It took me 1.5 hours to get to the trailhead departing from Mossyrock, WA.

Sleeping Bear Dunes Naional Lakeshore has a number of SOTA summits - Shauger Hill might be considered to be in the heart of the Lakeshore. Note That the official NPS map shows "Shauger Hill" (E on the map) quite a distance from the USGS coordinates used by SOTA. 

Take M-109 off of M-22 and check in at the entrance station - this is a fee park. I recommend getting a copy of the Lakeshore map to follow the one-way Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive and the numbered features.

Summary - Hiking Three Corner Rock (W7W/LC-101) and Birkenfeld (W7W/LC-094) together combines good views, no views, an open summit, a forested summit, a long hike, a stiff bushwhack and decent elevation gain. You can do this TRC first or Birkenfeld first. Starting at the Rock Creek Pass trailhead (45.74910, -122.04310) follow the PCT east to (45.71410, -122.00700). From here you have a short steep bushwhack up the ridge to the summit of Birkenfeld. Come back down the same way and return to the way you came, turning off the PCT to the Three Corners Rock trail.