Coming from Eugene, this trip takes about 30 minutes. After heading east on Hwy 126, get off on the 42nd exit and take Marcola for around 6.5mi. Shortly after passing the golf course, take a left on Hill St and turn right at the Mohawk General Store onto Donna Road, then left soon thereafter onto McGowan and continue on for a while. While the road is passable in a passenger sedan, as several vehicles in the area demonstrated, there are plenty of potholes further up, so it's best to go slow and keep your eyes peeled for hazards. Eventually there's a kind of Y/right-turn, make sure you stay left. GPS will soon tell you if you err here.
As you near the summit coordinates, you'll see that, as noted in a prior trip report, the direct route to the summit are currently gated by Weyerhauser outside of the activation zone, with signage posted barring public access. What most GPS maps don't seem to know is that there is an alternative route available by taking the right turn immediately before the gated road.
Follow this as it arcs counter-clockwise around the summit and you'll soon find a road (~1/2 mile?) to the left that eventually dead-ends at a turn-around, but puts you comfortably inside the activation zone about half-way down. This would be a good time to pull out SotaGoat and start tracking. The brush is very thick, and the property boundary isn't marked, so it's best to do the activation from the shoulder of the road once you find your spot, as opposed to bush-whacking looking for a clearing.
Buck Mtn seems to have good coverage of the surrounding region, and there are loads of friendly hams in the area happy to make a contact and get a weather report from the summit. I managed to activate entirely on 146Mhz, just by rotating my yagi to the cardinal points on the compass and calling cq for a few minutes.
