This year I'm particularly interested in first activations. One of the few remaining unactivated peaks within a couple hours drive from Seattle was Ebey Hill near Arlington, due to the access issues described in this previous pnwSOTA post by WA7JNJ.
Summary - Sawtooth Mountain, on the north end of Indian Heaven Wilderness, is a 2.5 mile hike with 1000 feet of gain from the parking lot to the edge of the activation zone. This trip report describes getting to the summit, another hundred feet or so up, with unprotected class three and four traverses/climbing and significant exposure.
Bring a climbing helmet for this summit! Even under the trees, you're in the kill zone for falling rocks!
Mt. Jefferson, considered one of if not the hardest summits in the state or Oregon to make it to. Having climbed (and activated) a lot of the big things that the Oregon cascades have to offer at this point, I can definitely confirm that this mountain isn’t a joke and requires a lot of serious mountaineering skills and conditioning in order to even be attempted since the combination of factors makes it a real challenge.
This is another summit I activated with my mountain bike and in this case that turned out to be a mistake as the bushwhack to the top is very steep, very thick, and not at all fun to do in bike shorts and shoes with spd cleats in them.
The network of roads that accesses this summit are minimally maintained, and the final approach road isn't maintained at all as there is no active tree harvesting happening at the time I activated the summit. Expect the final access road to continue to degraded and grow over. When I activated this, I was able to ride my bike to the highest point on the road but had to lift it over a large blowdown that you won't be able to drive past or lift a motorcycle over. if you're feeling ambitious, you and another experienced sawyer could get it with a 24" bar.
I hiked this with Bill K7WXW and my wife as part of a two summit hike. Bill did a good job of covering the hike. There is lots of overgrown shrubbery on the bottom half, but it is does not rise to the level of bushwhacking at this time. Give it a few more years wihtout trail maintenance and it will be more interesting. This was a enjoyable hike with great views and good 2m contacts into Portland.
I hiked this with Bill K7WXW and my wife as part of a two summit hike. I don't have much to add that Bill didn't say. There is a 1/3 mile section at the start that is a marshy, overgrown slog on a steep hillside. Bill got stuck in the muck a couple of times. I didn't know if I should help him or use him as a human bridge over the bog. Mosquitos in that section were horrendous. The rest of the hike was steep and trail finding was challenging. It did have wild lilies and other flowers that gave the hike some redeeming value. View from the top wa
Summary - Mount Beachie, on the edge of the Beachie Creek Lionshead burn, is hiked from a trailhead above Elk Lake. The fire burned over the top here, so it is a little desolate on top. 2M contacts, with a better-than-stock antenna, are possible. I did not turn on APRS. The trail is rough the whole way and by turns, steep, rocky, buggy, boggy, and overgrown.
The Spence Mountain Trail climbs about 1800 ft in 7 miles. Its not ever terribly steep but climbs steadily without much relief. There are plenty of gorgeous views to the South and West.