This was once a drive-up activation that has been gated due to valdalism - it is accessable to non-motorized vehicles (see sign below). (Updated August 2023.)

Hello All - 

We're looking at another Summit-to-Summit Party (S2S) for the Willamette Valley and Puget Sound on Saturday April 23rd at local noon.

On Wednesday, March 2, 2016, I completed my first winter SOTA at Shafer Butte, Idaho (W7I/BC-064).  Best way to get there is take the Bogus Basin Road 16 miles from Boise to Bogus Basin Ski Area, then continue about another couple miles to Pioneer (upper) Lodge parking lot.  During ski season Pioneer Lodge has open restrooms, lunch room, dining area, and beer bar.  From the Pioneer Lodge one can snowshoe or nordic ski up a ski trail or transverse the mountain from about 6,750' elevation for about a mile to Shafer Butte 7,582'.

Winter Adventures in Joshua Tree National Park, California.  On a recent trip to California to visit family, we took some time to visit Joshua Tree National Park, and Activate a couple SOTA peaks.  We made the town of Twenty Nine Palms our base, "roughing it" in the relatively new Holiday Inn Express facility, and making day excursions on February 1 & 2.  This is report 2 of 2, detailing Activation of an unnamed peak, Point 5540.

Deep Devil (W7W/KG-119) is a 2,500' 2-point summit located in the heart of the Snoquamalie Forest on private logging lands. With a proper entry permit, the activation zone can be reached by traveling along about 5 miles of gravel logging roads (each way) and about 1,400' of elevation gain. The summit offers broad views north, west and to the Cascade foothills and mountains to the east. Part of the summit is littered with logging slash that detracts from the surrounding beauty, but there are tall trees in some parts of the activation zones to escape the slash and to put up wire antennas.

Winter Adventures in Joshua Tree National Park, California.  On a recent trip to California to visit family, we took some time to visit Joshua Tree National Park, and Activate a couple SOTA peaks.  We made the town of Twenty Nine Palms our base, "roughing it" in the relatively new Holiday Inn Express facility, and making day excursions on February 1 & 2.  This is report 1 of 2, detailing Activation of Ryan Mountain.

Lions Mane (W7W/KG-125) is an intriguing 2 point bump that sits between a gravel county road and the North fork of the Snoqualmie River. The trip is about 3 miles round trip with about 750' of elevation gain. Most of the hike is along an old overgrown logging road that presents few challenges. The last 200' of elevation gain is an 1/8 mile cross-country scramble through new growth and slash. There are some nice views and good coverage on VHF into the Puget Sound region.

I just uploaded to the Downloads section a document I put together reviewing SOTA activity in North America during 2015. By examining the log files of top chasers I was able to gain insight into topics such as:

* How many summits were activated in 2015 -- in total and by summit point value

* How many total points were available for chasers.

* What were the top months and days of the week for chasers to accumulate points

* How many activations were there in each state -- and which states had the most activations in total and as a % of their total summits.