Three Lakes Peak is just within the Flathead Indian Reservation along the Reservation Divide. The summit has great views of the Confederate Salish-Kootenai Tribes land, the Flathead River, three alpine lakes, the Mission Mountains and the Ninemile Valley. A Flathead Reservation Use Permit is required.
Vermilion Peak is accessed via a moderately climbing trail in the southern Cabinet Mountains. It also makes an easy SOTA double when teamed up with Mount Headley, W7M/LO-018. The summit has fine views of nearby summits and distant peaks, like the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness Area.
Mount Headley is easily accessed via a moderately climbing trail in the southern Cabinet Mountains. It also makes an easy SOTA double when teamed up with Vermilion Peak, W7M/LO-056. The summit is the tallest in the area and has fine views of nearby summits, lakes and distant peaks. Be sure to stop and view Graves Creek Falls w
Brundage Mountain SOTA brings the thought of riding a chair lift at the ski resort to the summit. In actuality, the true summit is a mile north of the ski resort are requires a bushwhack for most of the 4 mile round trip. The views from the summit mostly make up for bushwhack and somewhat dangerous final ascent to the summit.
Approach: Rough gravel road in from Hyak. Little parking and congested driving at hairpin curve ~1.7 miles before the trail head. Just past the hairpin curve the road is extremely steep, rocky and potholed, to the point only vehicles with good clearance can get through. (I have an Outlander PHEV that did fine going up, and scraped on one rock coming down.) Once at the trail head it was busy, but easy to find an open parking spot on a Sunday afternoon.
Big Mountain is part of Whitefish Ski Area and in the summer you can take the chairlift to the top ($20) and hike, ride bikes and activate Big Mountain. The communication towers that sit atop the summit are easy to see from the top of the chairlift and it's only a short quarter mile walk up the graded road to the top.
I went to Bend to visit my in-laws over the weekend and had time for one summit. Figured I would get my monies worth and go for a ten pointer I knew I could activate, Mount Bachelor.
I activated Mount Bachelor in 2018. For that activation I took the lift to the Pine Marten Lodge and hiked to the summit from there. I told myself the next time I activated this one I would start my hike from the bottom.
Any opportunity to hike the Pacific Crest Trail for SOTA is a welcome one - and this may be one of the best we've experienced of this lovely national treasure of a trail. While only a bit less than five miles round trip and 1000 feet of gain, there is a challenging steep bushwack (Mode Sanglier - On!) that takes a bit of the shine off of the trail experience. A GPS will be important to successfully identifying the edge of the AZ.
This summit is a progressively more difficult climb as you ascend. The activation is challenging but rewarding. The route I took starts with an easy well trafficked trail, but the second part of the ascent has no trail and involves navigating through the Angell Basin which consists of areas of large granite boulders.
Aldrich Mountain in Grant County has two fairly accessible summits that make a nice pair to activate as part of the same day trip. These include Aldrich Mountain (W7O/NE-054) and 6401 (W7O/NE-205). Both are 6-point and located in the far western part of the Malheur National Forest, with access from Hwy 26 and Forest Routes 21 (Field Creek Rd) and 2150. Route 21 is paved while 2150 is a well-maintained gravel road. Plan for a 15 mile drive on 2150. There are campgrounds in the area.