Good Views From Summit

South Tiger Mountain is the easiest of a trio of peaks in the Tiger Mountain State Forest near Issaquah, Washington.

(Note of August 2018 - temporary closure of South Tiger Traverse - access from the north is still possible.)

I-90 Exit 25 for Highway 18 is the easiest way to reach the trailhead parking area. I've used the upper parking lot for two activations here - note that a Washington State Discovery Pass is required. There is an unattractive toilet at the upper parking lot.

Bohemia Mountain and Fairview peak are adjacent to each other and make a good activation pair.  They are nearly 6000' ASL and are among the highest W7/WV summits.  The views from the top of either one are wonderful.  Bohemia is the higher of the two and is a moderately easy hike, while Fairview is a drive up with a fire lookout on top.

Bohemia Mountain and Fairview peak are adjacent to each other and make a good activation pair.  They are nearly 6000' ASL and are among the highest W7/WV summits.  The views from the top of either one are wonderful.  Bohemia is the higher of the two and is a moderately easy hike, while Fairview is a drive up with a fire lookout on top.  My wife, Christina, accompanied me on these two activations on Wednsday, July 11, 2011.

A six-point SOTA on a Wednesday? You bet! The July 4th holiday made for a nice mid-week excursion to the hills to one of Washington's fourteen Goat Mountains. This one was twelve miles north of Mt. St. Helens.

After getting stopped at a closed forest road in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, we rerouted and arrived at the trailhead for Goat Mountain Trail #217 a little late. As soon as we stepped out of the Jeep, we knew that we were in for a bloody battle against the "skeeters." I think I was a pint low before I even started climbing.

2011-10-15 Mount Fremont W7/RS-005 CN96DW92

Start elev.: 4291 ft (1308 m)
Max elev.: 7324 ft (2232 m)
Total ascent: 3342 ft (1019 m)
Trip odometer: 11.4mi (18.347km) Up: 5.8mi (9.334km) Down: 5.6mi (8.012km)
Total time: 12h25m Up: 5h33m Down: 2h58m

Stats:
6.8 miles roundtrip
1761 ft elevation gain
Start elevation: 3463 ft
End elevation: 4962 ft

We parked at Falls Creek Horsecamp off Forest Road 65, about 16 miles north of Carson, WA. A call to the Gifford Pinchot National Headquarters a day earlier revealed 3-4 feet of snow at a berry patch just north of Red Mountain at a similar elevation. Begrudgingly, we attached our snowshoes to the back of our packs and then started out on Race Track Trail #171. After a short distance we encountered a kiosk that told us to bury our poop and fill out a wilderness use permit. We dropped a copy in the box and safely tucked away our copy for when a Ranger approached asking to see it.

2011-09-24 Palisades Peak W7/RS-008 CN96EW77

Start elev.: 6111 ft (1863 m)
Max elev.: 7083 ft (2159 m)
Total ascent: 3078 ft (938 m)
Trip odometer: 9.3mi (14.967km) Up: 4.8mi (7.725km) Down: 4.5mi (7.242km)
Total time: 11h07m Up: 4h Down: 2h45m
Video
APRS

Get up soon after 0400. Quick shower and on my way to the garage, to get the car. I packed my backpack Friday afternoon and put some other stuff (GPS, camera, boots, etc.) into a shopping bag. I only had to get dressed and grab the two packs on the morning. My pack weight about 50lbs. I have measured it to be around 49 without the antenna which is in the car and weighs about 2 pounds. Again I will take about 100oz of fluid with me. However, this time I head to a McDrive for breakfast first on the morning. This is what I usually do before hikes. Get two egg sausage McMuffins, which usually last till noon. I take some coke with me and throw a RedBull on the back seat. Maybe it will be good when I get back to the car. 0508 I already drive south on I-5. It is still dark and there is some traffic, but not much.

This was really a spur-of-the-moment thing.  I saw the weather was going to be great on Friday, cleared a day off with the boss, and checked over my "portable station": My NorCal NC-20, EFHW tuner and 34' of wire.  Cobbled up a Li-ion battery, and looked over some summit possiblities.  I settled on West Tiger as not being too far away, or too ambitious for a first attempt. (But I wanted to do more than a 1-pointer!)  So I put an alert on SOTAwatch, and set 11:00am local as a start time.

As we headed back from Lakeview Peak earlier in the day, Taylor and I took a detour to go by Bandwidth Mountain. This two-point summit is not significant enough to have an official name, but like many in the Washington SOTA database, it has been assigned a cute amateur-radio name to avoid a simple numbering system. Our outdated topo map software showed a road leading in the direction of the summit, but stopping a couple miles short. However, some satellite reconnaissance ahead of time showed that the road actually went much farther, to just below the base of the summit.

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.