Railroad Grade Mountain is a 2-point summit located near Failey Mountain (SK-151) and Mount Cavanaugh (SK-160). The start of the accent is just off N. Shore Dr, just past the end of Lake Cavanaugh Rd. Just a FYI, N. Shore Dr has portions of the road where it narrows because of erosion, large pickup truck be aware!
My track starts at the gate (48.311686,-121.97621) and has plenty of room for parking. The route is a logging road with some nice views of Big and Little Deer peaks along with White Chuck and fingers. It is a gradual climb with a elevation gain of about 1222ish feet and the round trip distance is about 8.9 miles. Travis, (KJ7RTO) and I brought our bikes for this trip and were able to ride them on portions of the trip up to the summit and made great time on the way back to the gate.
As we approached the summit, nature has been reclaiming the logging road. there is a point where the road seems to end and the rest is a bushwhack, but there is a small trail to on the right-hand side that will allow you to resume the logging road. This is the area where we stashed the bikes. The summit appeared to be quite a bushwhack and with ticks out and about in full force (I have had two encounters with ticks this year) we found a relatively decent clearing within the activation zone to set up masts for a 2m antenna and for a 49:1 EFHW/Linked dipole.
Although the is about 9 miles, I feel that the activation was worth it for the views.
73 de KJ7LLS
