Forested Summit

UPDATE: last trip I walked the bermed  road. A bit longer but much easier and safer. Tracks on sotamap.

Miller Peak is a large commercial communications site.  Given that, the road accessible to the public is narrow, brushy and with few places to pass on coming vehicles.  The road can become a bit crowded in later summer if a huckleberry crop along the road entices pickers. 

TL;DR - Peak 3534 is a twenty to thirty minute drive from South Saddle Mountain (W7O/NC-002) over logging roads. You pass South Saddle to get to 3534 so a two summit, four point day is easy. 4WD, good directions, and GPS are really handy. Once you park, the short hike up is steep but no worries, there's a longer, gentler path, too. The summit has no views, a small open space, trees, good APRS signals, and is RF quiet. Not a summit for hanging out nor the best place for HF antennas but easy to activate with 2M FM.

An opportunity for a one-day, three summits activation.  A good US Forest Service road system gets one close enough to activate three summits easily in one day, rare in Western Montana.  Babcock Mountain is forested summit.  The other two summits, Golden Mountain (W7M/GA-141) and Burnt Mountain (W7M/GA-145) are open summits and accessible via short hikes from the same US Forest Service road system.  Trees are available for attaching wire antennas or antenna poles.  The summit has limited views due to its being nearly flat and completely forested. 

Peak 2020 is relatively easy-to-access summit near the city of Tillamook on BLM land. It's nearly or fully drive up depending on your transport. From the look of the area, it's probably a known go-to spot for offroaders and hunters in the local forest who want a good view and a place for an evening fire.

A 'sorta' near drive-up in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest north of Carson. You can drive within a mile of this unremarkable peak and likely have a nice quiet time playing radio.

The SOTA peak database has the name of this peak incorrect as "Cardwell Hills HP", it is actually a well known peak called "McCulloch Peak" in the McDonald State Forest and all signs leading there, plus the marker on top, uses that name.

Bald hill isn’t really bald.  It is a fine grassland on its south exposure, but is tree covered on the remaining west, north and east exposures.  Access is available any time of year, albeit steep.  It is prime winter range for 50-100 elk each year so avoiding December through February could prevent disturbing the elk. 

240 feet from road to summit, +10 ft elevation

This is a short hike through dense regrowth in an old clearcut.

From the Bernice Exit on I-15 (Exit 151) between Boulder and Butte, take the Boulder River Road west as follows:

0.0          Exit I-15 at Bernice

3.2          Turn right and cross the Boulder River, then continue westwardly.

10.1       Stay on the main road (left) at the Indian Creek turn off.

Cinnabar Point is currently a mature lodgepole forest on a rolling summit.  In the 1980s the summit sported a dilapidated pole tower structure that may have been used as a lookout, but has since fallen and rotted.  It is an easy mountain bike ride up a permanently closed road and then a short climbing trail to an off-trail gradual assent to the summit.