Extreme Fire Danger - Many Summit Areas Inaccessible - Be Safe

Most (all) of Oregon National Forests are Closed

Most (all) State of Oregon and County Forest Lands are Closed

Brundage Mountain SOTA brings the thought of riding a chair lift at the ski resort to the summit.  In actuality, the true summit is a mile north of the ski resort are requires a bushwhack for most of the 4 mile round trip.  The views from the summit mostly make up for bushwhack and somewhat dangerous final ascent to the summit.

I have noticed several posts lately and have experienced the dilemma myself several times of encountering closed Forest Service gates. A well planned expedition to activaate a summit can be ruined by an inconviently and unexpected closed gate.

Approach: Rough gravel road in from Hyak.  Little parking and congested driving at hairpin curve ~1.7 miles before  the trail head.  Just past the hairpin curve the road is extremely steep, rocky and potholed, to the point only vehicles with good clearance can get through. (I have an Outlander PHEV that did fine going up, and scraped on one rock coming down.)  Once at the trail head it was busy, but easy to find an open parking spot on a Sunday afternoon.  

TL;DR version - A nice four pointer and a good place to do a leisurely activation. Enough of a hike to feel like the one worked for the summit. Good APRS coverage, okay ATT data coverage. QRM on small portions of the CW frequencies (40/30/20M). Get there early or risk not finding a place to park and don't forget your WA Discover Pass.

Big Mountain is part of Whitefish Ski Area and in the summer you can take the chairlift to the top ($20) and hike, ride bikes and activate Big Mountain.  The communication towers that sit atop the summit are easy to see from the top of the chairlift and it's only a short quarter mile walk up the graded road to the top.

There is a Locked Gate and currently Posted Extreme Fire Danger No Public Access Sign where the route turns left off Mountain Home Drive (see blue dot).  At that point the road is gravel up to Scott Mountain summit.  I came in from Highway 20 to Liberty Road to Mountain Home Drive.  The Property is posted by Cascade Timber out of Sweet Home.  Once the fire danger has been removed you can access the summit but it about a 2 mile hike up as no unauthorized vehicles are allowed.

There has always been a locked gate about .5 miles from the summit (Radio Site Towers) that you could park at the gate and hike up to the summit (See N7CNH report on Buck Mountain and Tom, Mount).  However, it has now been Posted as No Trespassing (by both Weyerhaeuser and American Tower).

I went to Bend to visit my in-laws over the weekend and had time for one summit. Figured I would get my monies worth and go for a ten pointer I knew I could activate, Mount Bachelor. 

I activated Mount Bachelor in 2018. For that activation I took the lift to the Pine Marten Lodge and hiked to the summit from there. I told myself the next time I activated this one I would start my hike from the bottom. 

After failed attempts at Burnt Hill [W7W/NO-108] and Display Mountain [W7W/SO-105], I drove down Donkey Creek Road east of Highway 101 to a spot where the satellite views from Google Maps and AllTrails.com show a road splitting off to the east [47.303033, -123.834128].  

I parked here and passed a gate -- no 'no tresspassing signs' or other indications I was on private land (see photo).