Summit is forested and/or has ample tree cover.
1820 is a relatively easily accessible forested summit in the Oregon Central Coast (CC) region near Lincoln City, OR. It sits entirely on Siuslaw National Forest land. 1820 was a First Activation for the crew, which consisted of Amy KC7JNU, Katherine KK7IUD, KC K1ZMA, Jason K7BXX and myself.
This summit was my last one on a recent trip to Willamette National Forest.
It came about after all the other summits I had selected north of the Santiam Hwy were closed due to recent fire damage.
Hike: 2 miles RT Bushwhack
Elevation Gain: 500 feet
There are eight Round Tops in Oregon although two of them add another word to the name. This one is a few miles north and a bit east of John Day Oregon as the radio signal flies.
To get there, turn north from US 26 on Keeny Creek Road, AKA FR 18. Get to Four Corners (44.5404, -118.8427) and turn left (west) on good gravel road FR 36. Proceed to FR 544 at 44.52833, -118.88636.
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.
I did Pothole Butte after Maklaks. It was not on my list for this trip but you always should keep a back up plan if you have some extra time or one fails right?
I came from Sun Mountain Rd but this is easily accessed from 97 via FS RD 70. Take a left off RD70 at 42.95707, -121.87904. The SW side of the mountain is very steep and cliffs. We drove around the south side to 42.95635, -121.9501.
Maklaks was the 2nd summit I did while camping at Jackson Kimball State Park, Sand Ridge the evening before, Maklaks the next morning. These two can easily be done in one day. If really ambitious, you could even add Pothole Butte or another Hwy 97 summit.
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.
The network of roads that accesses this summit are minimally maintained, and the final approach road isn't maintained at all as there is no active tree harvesting happening at the time I activated the summit. Expect the final access road to continue to degraded and grow over. When I activated this, I was able to ride my bike to the highest point on the road but had to lift it over a large blowdown that you won't be able to drive past or lift a motorcycle over. if you're feeling ambitious, you and another experienced sawyer could get it with a 24" bar.
