Blogs

Davis Peak is very accessible to Portland Metro, with a half mile hike and offers an amazing view. The downside is a fair bit of RF interference from the installation sharing the peak with you.

The google directions were accurate, although I will note that the main road to the peak has 2 names, and signage alternates between them : "Aho Carson" and "Davis Peak Road". When google told us to take a right onto Davis Peak Road the sign at the turn said "Aho Carson".

My friend John K7JRO sent me an email on Friday night saying he was going to activate Goat Peak the next day. It was going to be a trip with the Seattle Mountaineers, and therefore a very short, 2m FM only activation. I decided it would be fun to surprise him by getting myself on to a nearby summit. After looking at SOTLAS for a few minutes, I found a likely pair of summits: Mount Josephine and Mount Josephine West. Clint KJ7LLS had previously activated these two, so I pinged him on Slack and he graciously provided information. Woot!

Fanno Peak is on Weyerhaeuser property and requires a recreation permit for access which has a limited number avalible, and has a cost (Black Rock is the permit area).

Pilot Knob is a quiet peak inside the boundary of the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, and a stone's throw away from the Pacific Crest Trail. The approach is just short of 2 miles one-way, with some travel on an old trail and some bushwhacking.

The drive is about 1 hour and 15 to 30 minutes from somewhere in Portland. The hike is about 2 miles one-way with 1300' elevation gain and took about 1.5 hours to complete in the dry season.

Round top is drive + short hike on a logging road. It offers clear decent views with plenty of space to spread out your gear. The road became impassble due to snow about 1.5 miles from the summit (with an AWD Subaru). So this added about an extra mile trudging through snow (6-18") that we hadn’t anticipated, but it was a nice day and the walk up was quite nice really. Elevation gain for the hike was about 500ft.

Maidenhead Mtn (W7W Summit 1930) is accessible with a 1.5 mile (800 ft vertical) hike up an abandoned Forest Service Road bed.  The road bed is overgrown with trees that look around 8 years old. There is a trail that is established for about 50% of the way.  The second half of the route has a significant amount of blowdown and really slows you.

Dennie Ahl Hill is due west of Hoodsport WA. We used Google maps from Shelton and it routed us correctly. Our route was "priusable" with some potholes that are navigatable. It has a wide activation zone and FM into the Seattle area is doable. I set up HF to get some S2S, trees around the perimeter make it easy to set up a mast and you can easily lounge in a chair in the flat area.  Easy Peazy summit.

TL;DR - Cornell Mountain is on private property but the activation zone extends to the public right-of-way, so this is a side-of-the-street activation. You might be able to activate on HF with appropriate gear but expect the locals to give you the stinkeye if you spend much time loitering.

First of all Brian, AB6D was the first on this mountain. New updates and advanced accuracy apparently changed the true summit to the NE peak rather than the SW. I wouldn't have gone if I hadn't read his summary. Same mountain, nearly same trek, just a slightly different finish.

This was #4 of 4 in a day. Battle Mountain on a map looks like it is a drive up but it is not. It is mostly a burn scar and the original lookout road (lookout is gone) has been bermed. It is a very nice summit on top. Flat, open but big timber for shade and a view. Lookout ruins, footings. Getting up was not easy though.