Exposed Summit

Backpacking into North Cascades National Park (US-0055)

Backpacking into North Cascades National Park (US-0055)

Start the ascent at 45.99028, -121.80308 on the Thomas Lake trail.  Initially the trail threads between two lakes then starts up an old logging road (my guess) before Indian Heaven became a wilderness in 1984.

Note that it can be very windy on the easterly exposed summit, especially if there is any kind of east wind in the Gorge.

Sand Ridge was the first of 3 I did while doing a quick spontaneous one night camping trip to Wood River at Jackson F Kimball State Park. After setting up camp, we went to scout it for the next day but were able to get close enough I decided to hike up and activate it that evening.

Summary - I first hiked Lookout Mountain via the usual route, High Praire Trail, Tim N7KOM as part of a two day outing that included SOTA summits 6001 and Badger Butte.

Goat Mount is a nice steep ridgeline hike.  The total distance from the trail head is just over a mile with an elevation gain of 1500 feet.  The peak is line of sight to much of Portland, so 2m contacts were plentiful.  There are many nice trees for HF antennas.

This is another summit I activated with my mountain bike and in this case that turned out to be a mistake as the bushwhack to the top is very steep, very thick, and not at all fun to do in bike shorts and shoes with spd cleats in them. 

Dean Mountain, also labeled on some maps "Dear Mountain", as in Dear Mountain it's been such a long time, sorry I haven't written.

Overview:

Heading into the 2024 W7O Campout weekend, I was 36 points shy of Mountain Goat. K6ARK and I hit some strategic drive ups on the way down for 10 points, and then knocked out 24 points on the Siskiyou Crest. That left me at 998 points going into Saturday. I didn't want to activate just any summit for my MG, I wanted something that called back to the mountaineering I was doing when I first got licensed and learned of SOTA.