Good Parking At Trailhead

The gate just past the Mount Bachelor ski area on the Cascade Lakes Highway opened just two weeks ago Friday - there is still plenty of roadside snow on the five miles from the ski area to the Devil's Lake trailhead. There's some shoulder cleared near the trail and a bit of space at the entrance to the trailhead parking lot - we bivyed there in the vehicle for the night and got ourselves up at 4am for a 5am start. There is no trail sign or anything to indicate where the trail starts - we scoped it out for bootprints in the snow during the last of the daylight the night before.

Taylor (K7TAY) and I went back to the Northern Columbia River Gorge area for yet another four-point summit in Southern Washington today. The weather was forecast for 70F in the valleys and clear skies; we were not disappointed.

This is a well-used, highly-trafficed trail.  There is plenty of parking, but you may want to get to the trailhead early as the parking lot does fill up.  There are restroom facilities at the trailhead, but they may be seasonally open.  The summit has a hand rail that can be used for antenna guy lines.

My Adventures in fitness and SOTA continue!  This was a fun one, spur of the moment decision to do it.  Hours drive to the trail head, hour up, 30 minutes operating, hour down and an hour drive home.  The view from the top was really nice and there was a ledge with a really good drop off as well!

GPX and Google Earth files here.

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18 pt
18 pt
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Finally stopped being only a shack sloth and decided to try to be a mountain goat for once.  I went with a group of friends and took my best friend and service dog Yukon with me.  It was a real blast with successful activation, Yukon and I can't wait till the next summit.  We decided to start small and plan on slowly working our way up to the tougher summits.  

A month and a half ago, Dan (KK7DS) and I attempted Silver Star Mountain on snowshoes from the north side. Sadly, we never made it to the summit due to strong gusts of wind that nearly blew me off the moutain :) Yesterday, we decided to approach it from the south side following the Grouse Vista Trail, a 6-mile roundtrip hike (here's a link to our GPS track). Our hope was that most of the snow would have melted since our last unsuccessful attempt.

2011-09-11 Tamanos Mt. W7/RS-015 CN96EU89

Start elev.: 3791 ft (1155 m)
Max elev.: 6781 ft (2067 m)
Total ascent: 3096 ft (944 m)
Trip odometer: 10.6mi (17.059km) Up: 5.2mi (8.369km) Down: 5.4mi (8.690km)
Total time: 11h05m Up: 4h37m Down: 3h24m

Beacon Rock is an 848-foot basalt column (860 feet ASL) that formed the core of an ancient volcano. It is located in a Washington State Park of the same name about one hour east of Portland, Oregon.

First off - Chasers Rock! There was no way to self-spot and Phil - NS7P, found me and moved with me to 14.064-cw to get things started. And then, long after our QSO was done, Rich - N4EX, noted my QSY to 14.309-ssb and spotted me there. The climb of Mount St. Helens is different depending on the season - currently there is snow from trailhead to summit while late summer will find you on scree and pumice and rock the entire way. Myself, I prefer the great white stairmaster (snow), because I ski.