This was my second Winter activation attempt of this summit. The first one ended in an epic fail getting my Jeep stuck in the snow (see picture below). I had to do a self-recovery with my shovel and winch. Do not attempt to drive on the groomed "road." Though along the non-winter access road, this is a groomed "trail" for snowmobiles!
Best way to get to and hike Woodrat in my opinion is to take Sterling Creek Rd (several ways to get to Sterling depending on where you are coming from) and eventually turn on Woodrat Mt Rd 38-2-29. There is a sign and the road is paved most of the way. You will come to an intersection on the right where Bishop Cr meets Woodrat, keep going up Woodrat for another 3-4/10ths of a mile and there will be a rutty off road embankment on the left 42.22318,-122.98933. You'll have to find a pullout before or after to park.
We were down in Philomath, OR and decided to check out Marys Peak while we were in the area. I know Marys is thought of as a mostly drive up, but I found a popular hike from lower down on the mountain. The East Ridge trailhead "Connor's Camp" has nice parking and a pit toilet. It is a fee site, so you'll need your forest pass or $5 to fill out a permit.
Yesterday morning I climbed Mt. Hood (W7O/CN-001) for a sunrise SOTA. I think this was my 6th ascent of Hood. Conditions on the mountain change daily & weekly. This was one of the more difficult ascents & descents.
My friends and I left the climbers lot at Timberline just before 2am. We took our time and made the top of Palmer around 3:40am. After a quick breakfast we continued up the mountain on good solid snow. We were hit with sulfur from Devils Kitchen throughout the hike up.
Patterson Mountain is an established hike, with quite a few resources providing the details. WA7JNJ's previous trip report should provide plenty of information for fair weather activations, so I'll focus here on my experience doing this hike in January.
I completed the first-ever activation of Wapato Peak today (Peak 3380). Wapato Peak has no official name in the SOTA database, but several sources mention this one so it's the name that I will use.
There is no established trail, but the hike is fairly easy, with only ~800 feet of elevation gain and a 1.5-2 mile round trip. It is steep at times, but I found it manageable with trekking poles and ordinary hiking boots even with an inch of snow on the ground.
I have done Surveyor a couple times. The first time I had my closest experience with a bear as one started climbing up the very rocky summit ridge as I took a selfie on top, not seeing her below! I think it was a mama and a young one may have been in a den in the rocks that she pushed out that came around the ridge to where we were. It was quite an experience and I was glad I was not alone. Maggie treed the young bear which added to the excitement. It also could have only been one bear, hard to tell size of them all when caught off guard!
W7O/SC-214 was a nice little mountain that I did after Holcomb Peak. Basically you drive past Holcomb peak a bit SE and it's pretty self explanatory of where to go. You'll take a small spur road and depends on your vehicle how close you can get. You can park in some large pullouts just a little ways up the road or jeep it another 1/4mi or so. Depends on how much pinstriping you're looking for, it gets narrow with sharp manzanita and no easy turnaround.
Snow was coming soon so I really wanted to get out and try and get a few new mountains in before winter came. A couple on my list were Holcomb peak and a no name summit right next to it, SC-214. I put these on hold before because they are a drive to something that I've never been to and have no info on, however with winter bonus and no snow yet, it made the trip worth the risk. My 1st summit was Holcolmb Peak which looked like it had the possibility of being a drive up if timber corp allowed, but much of the mountain and surrounding area had no trespassing signs.
Rock Candy Mountain is an old US Forest Service Lookout site. The summit views are great with cliff cirque basins full of chipmunks, golden-mantle squirrels and chirping pikas, and distant high peaks of the Cabinets Mountains to the south, the Selkirk Mountains to the west and into Canada to the North.