Quck activation of my "Neigborhood SOTA Summit". It takes me less than 10 minutes to arrive at TH from home. On a very warm day for nearly the end of January (60+ degrees F), we set out from Anti Aircraft TH, Cougar Mountain Regional Park. Our route was abot 7 miles circuit of the upper reaches of the Park. Wilderness Peak is about 1,600 foot in elevation and a 1 point SOTA summit.
I moved to Central Oregon from Western Colorado last month. I got into SOTA in Colorado and decided to to dust off my radio and see the hills in Oregon.
I chose Juniper Butte because it is close to my home and close to Haystack Butte. I was going to try for a double.
The day after Christmas seemed like a good day to do some local re-con on a two-pointer I've been
meaning to try out. I left the house about 11:30am headed for Bald Mountain W7O/CC-011 in Polk
county Oregon and packed the backpack with radio and SOTA pole just in case I got lucky.
To get to Bald Mountain, you need to get on OR 223, also known as Kings Valley HWY. OR 223 can be
accessed from US Hwy 20, west of Corvallis, OR or near the junction of OR 22 and OR 99W close to
Dallas, Oregon. The first off-pavement turn from OR 223 is on Valstez Rd about 0.4 miles east of
A fun evening activation. Here is the blog to the activation: http://kf7pxt.blogspot.com/2014/12/w7wso-081-sota-activation-and-other.html
With the continuing warm weather, I went out this weekend to finish out the
trio of Coffin, Buck and Bachelor Mountains. I headed for Bachelor this weekend.
To reach the Bachelor mountain trailhead, follow the directions I gave in the
Coffin and Back mountain activation. However, when reaching the #450 road,
continue further for about 0.5 mile and take a left at the intersection. After
about 0.6 miles, the road comes to a end at the trail head. I found only
a post where I suppose the trail head sign used to be.
I made an attempt at this summit on 13 December 2014. I was hoping to get a few bonus points along with an activation of an unactivated summit. Steep Climb and a short day prevented me from making it all the way to the summit.
See my blog here for the whole writeup:
http://kf7pxt.blogspot.com/2014/12/copper-mountain-w7wso-009-attempted.html
Since the weather has continued warm and wet, I thought I'd go grab some solitude
and winter bonus points. I had been eyeing three summits close to each other and
to OR HWY 22. These peaks are Coffin Mountain, Buck Mountain and Bachelor Mountain.
I hoped to summit all three this Saturday but only managed two due to a number
of equipment problems.
To reach Coffin mountain, follow OR 22 east from Detroit Oregon. About 19 miles
east of Detroit, turn right onto FS 11 also known as Straight Creek Rd. It is
Blue Mounds State Park is an easy drive up summit about 30 miles east of Madison, Wisconsin. It's a state park that has camping, picnicing and two observation towers (one at each end of the summit) that would be great for VHF contacts.
Take County Road F north from US-151. You can easily follow the signs less than two miles to the park. At the summit there is a large loop with picnic areas - the summit proper is at the center of the loop so anywhere would be in the activation zone. There is also a wooden observation tower on the east side of the summit.
Blog and story at: http://www.pnwsota.org/blog/kf7pxt/2014-november-22/larch-mountain-activation