This was a winter activation and I had hoped for a one-way ride on the Pomerelle Triple Chair lift. After an e-mail and phone inquiry I received no response. I then planned a hike from the Pomerelle parking lot along established roads to the top of the lift and then a very short hike to the summit.
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.
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.
McClellan Butte had been on my list the last year or so as challenging hike, due to the last section required to get within the activation zone. I've watched the video below multiple times, and it provides helpful trail and summit information...along with an alternate parking/hiking to shorten length. The video also captures the summit scramble and views from the summit.
UPDATE Jan 2023 - Beacon Rock Trail is closed. You might find status here:
https://www.parks.wa.gov/AlertCenter.aspx?AID=3530&fbclid=IwAR16QwFmuw_Y...
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.
Lake mountain has been on my list for quite a while but for some reason I had the impression it was going to be much harder. I was waiting to do it with a partner for safety reasons but it ended up being a great day of just me and Maggie. It is a steep mountain but most of it is either trailed or open meadow until you get towards the very top. I made the mistake of going straight up not looking at my GPS satellite images and got very tangled up in the manzanita and buck brush. This is definitely not Maggie's favorite way to hike, sometimes refusing.
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.
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.