Good Parking At Trailhead

Lone Butte is a "small" hill in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. It is easily accessible from the Columbia River Gorge via Wind River and NF30, or from I-5 up the Lewis River Hwy to Northwoods and then NF90/Curly Creek Rd. (which connectes to NF30). There is a large area for parking where road 401 cuts to the West. If you aren't particular about your vehicles paint, the road is driveable to an old rock quarry at the west end of Lone Butte, there are some ruts a short way into the road, but they are easy to straddle and most any vehicle could make it past.

UPDATE Dec 2022: There is now a closed (unsigned) gate a ways up Mills Bridge Road. It is recommended to park on the highway and this activation becomes an 8 mile RT. 2200 foot gain road walk. 

Nov 2, 2019 was the perfect day for climbing Mt. Carrie. The weather was cool and clear. Some snow up above Heart lake, but the Cat Walk (the unmaintained trail and scramble east of Heart Lake) was free of snow. That area would be very challenging with snow, and an ice axe and crampons would be a must. 

Why

With the first four peaks in Cascades North being activated, I decided I needed to hatch a plan to hit the next two. This summit is over 8 miles from the nearest trailhead and 4500 feet of gain, and it's almost 5000 feet of gain from our trailhead, so I recommend doing it as an overnight. We activated this peak in conjunction with South Cinder, W7O/CN-005, and I strongly recommend if you put in the effort to do one that you make time for the other.

Why

With the first four peaks in Cascades North being activated, I decided I needed to hatch a plan to hit the next two. This summit is over 7 miles from the nearest trailhead and 3300 feet of gain, and it's 4000 feet of gain from our trailhead, so I recommend doing it as an overnight. We activated this peak in conjunction with North Cinder, W7O/CN-006, and I strongly recommend if you put in the effort to do one that you make time for the other.

We didn't see any swamps, and it certainly wasn't swamped with people!

Getting to the trailhead was straighforward by following the directions at https://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/willamette/recarea/?recid=80972.

Our first snow of the year. I have done all the 8 point summits in the upper Dungeness area that I can get to with a day hike except this one. It seemed like a relatively easy one, 6 miles in with a half mile off trail to the summit. It was a good day for it. About a foot of power snow at the summit, but the ground under the snow wasn't  frozen yet, so I could still get good traction without crampons. 

WW7D and I were in the area for the WA State QSO party (Salmon Run). This was the 2nd summit we did on this extremely wet Sunday in late Sept.

The road up to West Twin Butte is really fun... if you are on a motorcycle! The last 1/2 mile of this road is heavily rutted out, and would be a challenge for a high-clearence 4x4. Most people will probably opt to park lower down and walk up the road.

WW7D and I were in Skamania County for the WA state QSO party (Salmon Run). This was one of two summits we visited on Sunday of that weekend. Neither of us realized it at the time, but this was the first activation of this summit.

Termination Point is a great little summit! There is a steep boot path from the end of the road up to the summit - a little faint and bushwhacky in some spots. The hike is very short - something like 1/2 mile and ~100' of elevation gain.

Today's attempted activation of Wilderness Peak W7W/KG-132 was my second attempt at my first SOTA activation. My cousin and I have been hiking all summer on various trails between Lake Washington and Snoqualmie Pass. In the last few weeks I've decided that I'd give SOTA a try. We made it up to the top of Wilderness Peak today where I was stymied by steady rain and radio problems. I called it a bust and will try again in a few weeks.