Finding myself with a rare weekday off, I worked through a handful of possible peaks. After being pushed to look at lower elevation summits by remaining spring snow, I noticed a named, unactivated, two pointer in Tillamook State Forest – Pinochle Peak. After a few hours of study, a possible path was identified. It was clear that approaching from the south off of Highway 6 would be sketchy, but with limited time, it was the chosen path.
SeaPac, the ARRL Northwest regional hamfest is June 1, 2 and 3, 2018. We are having a Friday night SOTA gathering in Seaside as we have the past few years. We have reserved the banquet room at the the same pizza place and are looking forward to seeing SOTA folks there! This year we'll have a couple very short presentations and be sure to introduce everyone. Please join us!
Place: Pizza Harbor - 15 North Edgewood St, Seaside, OR
Eight Dollar Mountain lives up to it’s notable name, somewhat unusual in an area that has may nameless mountains. On a topo map it looks like one of the nearby Cascades, a very definite cone not attached to the nearby hills, but it’s doesn’t share their volcanic origins. I was surprised it had never been activated as there is a (very steep) jeep track to the research station on the summit, and the trailhead is just a mile or so from highway 199.
The morning after my arrival in Oregon, I was awake 2 hrs before dawn despite the extensive sampling of Oregon beer I’d engaged the night before. After verifying there was no way I was getting more sleep, I crept out of the house without breakfast or coffee to head toward the closest reference on my list: Bolt Mountain, a never-activated 1pt summit a few miles south. I posted a quick alert, commandeered the family truck and headed out.
I received a note from Doug W7ZV letting me know that I had crossed private property on my hike to Wagner Mountain. In fact the SUMMIT of Wagner is apparently private property, owned by Young Life's Washington Family Ranch. The river map I was using did not indicate this, and there are no private property signs in this remote area. In short, I had no way of knowing that I would be entering private property on this hike.
Scouted the summit while in the area. Too far into the Coast Range for 2m contacts in the valley. Might be good for S2S contacts or other bands. Summit is easy to drive to, less than a mile off Boundary Road between the Trask & Nestucca drainages, no low-profile vehicles but anything else should be fine. Can drive right to the top, which has decent views and might make a good place to camp out.
This summit is an easy driveup, though low clearance vehicles will have trouble with the last half mile or so. Even better, park at the bottom of the steep hill climbs and hike in or pick up the unused motorcycle trail that crosses over the summit and follow it up. The hill is access by Boundary road, which is accessed from the upper reaches of the Trask drainage or a variety of roads that climb up from the Nestucca.
An easily accessed summit, that's easily access from the Nestucca River byway. A bunch of different roads will lead you into the area from nearly any direction. Probably the easiest is up Fan Creek Road from the Nestucca River. It is near enough to Boudary road to access several other nearby summits along the same ridgeline.
I was in Spokane with my wife, who was presenting some research at a conference (I'm retired, she's the "breadwinner" now) and had some time to kill. I brought my KX2 along, with a QRPGuys 40m-10m UnUnTenna. This is a fairly simple antenna, with wire mated to a 9:1 unun, and takes a bnc coax jumper from the KX2. After a hike up from the parking area, I found a good place to set up, and threw a messenger line up into a tree.
I will be on a 5 day rafting trip on the John Day River in Central Oregon from April 17th - 21st with my boy scout troop. I plan to do a few SOTA activations during the trip, and also participate in 'QRP to the field' on the 21st. We are putting in at Service Creek and ending near Clarno. I will post some SOTA alerts before I leave, but the times are likely to be completely wrong!