Trail contains no technical obstacles
With a slight gap in my family duties, the time finally came for one last 2024 SOTA adventure on Vedder Mountain (W7W/WH-196). Perched along the US–Canada border and overlooking Sumas and North Whatcom County, this summit has been on my list for a while. The best part of this activation? Bringing along my new hiking buddy, Nella, our Red Retriever puppy!
Here’s a near drive-up 2-point summit that might be part of your plan to visit the Redwoods in SW Oregon.
Mount Gauldy is an easy summit near Hebo Oregon
It is either a drive up or a road walk of at most 3.5mi RT and 600ft elevation gain.
1465 is a 1-point peak in the Oregon Central Coast region. The top of the summit is close to the road but due to geography and deep thorny overgrowth, remains nearly inaccessible. However, a spur road does pass through the edge of the activation zone (as confirmed by GPS altitude).
Scott Mountain is a 1-point summit in the Oregon Central Coast (CC) region with a straightforward, easy grade hike of 2.2 miles each direction. The AZ contains ample space to set up on a dis-used roadbed with decent cell coverage for spotting.
From Oregon Hwy. 34, proceed west of Alsea. You will enter the Siuslaw National Forest. Driving directions are as follows:
This turned out to be an easy activation. The road has some rutted sections where having a high clearance vehicle is nice but not necessary. Since we were hosting a S2S Party, 2M was no problem, but we also worked many locals on 2M. There are plenty of old Juniper snags to tie off a mast to for HF. Have fun!
See my full report here
This is a stretch for a PNWSOTA summit report but, if you find yourself in Seoul with a few hours to kill, this could help you navigate. My son and I were able to activate this summit after doing the normal tourist activities.
Mount Emily is a six point summit north of La Grande Oregon. It is a complete drive up, but requires AWD and moderate ground clearance to get there. The road out of La Grande quickly turns to gravel and gets steep (17% according to the warning sign). It stays good gravel for just short of 10 miles and then gets a bit rough. The directions given by Google Maps are accurate except for one place where it wants you to cut the switchback (see below). The activation zone is very large so it is easy to get away from all the towers and buildings at the summit. I did that and had no RFI issues.
Sand Ridge was the first of 3 I did while doing a quick spontaneous one night camping trip to Wood River at Jackson F Kimball State Park. After setting up camp, we went to scout it for the next day but were able to get close enough I decided to hike up and activate it that evening.
