Treacherous Trail

Pine Ridge is a steep hike of a little less than one mile (OW) and 800' vertical, close to Gray Butte-W7O/CE-180 and Grizzly Mountain-W7O/CE-135 so you might consider doing other peaks in the area.

Ochocco Mountains High Point could be considered a drive-up summit...for some vehicles. Although most of the way is paved, your low clearance passenger vehicle will have problems with the road in places where you can't turn around. A quarter mile of walking to the summit is recommended - it's a neat spot.

About 30 miles east of Prineville on Highway 26, turn north on Forest Road 27. This may be described as Grant Springs Road, or Summit Road, depending on your resource. This is near milepost 49. 

La Forêt is a forested one-point summit near La Motte-Servolex, France. Heading east on A43, just before the tunnel, exit at Lac d'Aiguebelette, pass through the toll plaza, take the first exit from the roundabout and then the next right. After you pass under the A43 and after about 400m, take a sharp left onto Route du Terreau and wind up the hills towards Ayn on D36E. Pass through Ayn and continue on D37 to Route du Montigon. A GPS will be quite useful in getting to the trailhead.

After studying the map, I thought it was worth checking if the road that approaches the summit is accessible. I invited my family, and we drove up to check, and it definitely is not. We drove NF 23 to NF 2353, which proceeds past some campsites to the trailhead. There is a gate that is sometimes closed, but this doesn't really add a lot of effort to the trail. We got to NF2348, which turns into NF2365 and heads up the mountain, to find a berm had been constructed, decidedly closing the road. We made the decision to hike it anyway, and embarked.

(IMPORTANT NOTE! Everything in this post is true with the exception of the peak designation: W7O/NC-022. 

Half Wave on Full Wave...barely Worked! 

On Sunday, April 28, 2019, My SOTA Buddy, Tim, KG7EJT, and I headed to Church...Mountain that is.  For SOTA purposes, this smallish peak, along the Wenatchee River, in the deep Tumwater Canyon area, is called Full Wave Mountain.  On USGS maps it is referred to as Church Mountain.

I had been looking for springtime Activations on Un-Activated peaks to venture out to, while the high country is still buried in snow, and access to trail heads is problematic.  Full Wave Mountain came up in my search.

Summary: On 31MARCH19 I decided to complete the first activation of W7O/NC-072 currently called only '2905' I had briefly attempted this summit for the S2S party on 23MAR19 but found the road covered in snow.  Today however I was able to drive the majority of the way up with the actual hike portion being fairly short but sweet.  I made the mistake of completing the activation during a big CQ competition so the entire 20m band was full of signals but I was still about to get 18 contacts including 3 s2s contacts.

This was a winter activation of Bearhead Mountain.

WW7D and I decided to give this a shot based on some WTA trip reports that indicated it was possible to drive to the trailhead. We took my 1988 Toyota 4x4 truck that has big tires and is fairly capable off road.

Badger Butte is a four-point summit east of Mount Hood. It's a bit of trouble to reach and the last bit to the summit is cross-country, but only a half mile through fairly open forest. There are no views at the top to reward you - just contacts on the air with your fellow SOTA folks.

Here for some activation fun west of Trout Lake, Washington is Peak 4420 or Monte Cristo Range High Point. It's a bit out of the way, but is a near drive-up four pointer accessed by a road that a passenger car can handle. 

Needless to say, a GPS is a good help for finding this summit. There are other roads leading there, but the directions below are for a gravel road in good condition.