Shady Trail

Cady Mountain, W7W/RS-084 has been on my radar for a while. My wife's family owns a home in Friday Harbor so I have always wanted to activate this summit. I was bummed by ATN's report that it would be difficult to activate from the south side because of private property, so I did not think I could. I arrived here on Saturday and I started looking at GAIA GPS. I could see there was public property owned by the San Juan County Land Bank to the north of the summit that was still in the AZ. I could see a hiking trail just below it. I decided to give it a try.

https://kf7pxt.blogspot.com/2022/07/ashley-mountain-w7mfn-193-sota.html

Short but challenging road hike. Summer is very accessible, winter may require longer snowshoe/ski as roads are closed in winter.

Full writeup  here

I received some pointers from Anne, K7AHR, they were crucial to getting there as the map and mapping software suggested turning up the west bank of the Salmonberry River. That road is replete with no trespassing signs.

Cedar Mountain is now gated and locked. You must have permission from land owner to access BLM land.

A friend from Eugene wanted to hit Mount McLoughlin in the winter and despite the drive distance from Beaverton, it looked like too beautiful a mountain to pass up. After picking up rental snowshoes from REI in Medford I made it to the Summit Sno-Park TH at sunset. Casey arrived shortly after and we made some quick dinner on our backpacking stoves then turned in for the night. 

We were down in Philomath, OR and decided to check out Marys Peak while we were in the area. I know Marys is thought of as a mostly drive up, but I found a popular hike from lower down on the mountain. The East Ridge trailhead "Connor's Camp" has nice parking and a pit toilet. It is a fee site, so you'll need your forest pass or $5 to fill out a permit. 

Wickiup Mountain is a summit on the edge of Astoria's Bear Creek Watershed, from which they draw their water, as well as an active radio site. As such, access from the south is gated, and road access from the north stops just shy of the summit. What followed is one of the thickest, roughest bushwhacks, mile for mile, of my SOTA career, but it was nice to tick this one off the list. If you route find a little better than I do, you might have a better time, and if you hit it earlier in the year, the die-back of the brush might benefit you.

I have done Surveyor a couple times. The first time I had my closest experience with a bear as one started climbing up the very rocky summit ridge as I took a selfie on top, not seeing her below! I think it was a mama and a young one may have been in a den in the rocks that she pushed out that came around the ridge to where we were. It was quite an experience and I was glad I was not alone. Maggie treed the young bear which added to the excitement. It also could have only been one bear, hard to tell size of them all when caught off guard!

Lake mountain has been on my list for quite a while but for some reason I had the impression it was going to be much harder.  I was waiting to do it with a partner for safety reasons but it ended up being a great day of just me and Maggie. It is a steep mountain but most of it is either trailed or open meadow until you get towards the very top. I made the mistake of going straight up not looking at my GPS satellite images and got very tangled up in the manzanita and buck brush. This is definitely not Maggie's favorite way to hike, sometimes refusing.