Access: Since SR26 is closed from the north due to a washout, you must come in on SR26 from the south. Take SR25 south out of Randle then SR99 west towards Windy Ridge. At approx 7 mi in, take SR25 north to 1/4 mi past the Ryan Lake Interpretive Site road. Take the TH road west for about 1/2 mi.
Lesson learned: all forest roads are not created (nor maintained) equal. Buzzard Butte has two seeminly viable routes for approach: off HWY101 from the east via Farmer Creek Road, and from the west near Pacific City via Sandlake Rd. I discovered the east route, although still viable, is a much longer hike than I was planning for. Farmer Creek Rd becomes a forest road and is fairly drivable up to the point that it forks to NF-1034 (45.2585, -123.9035).
Tanner Butte is perhaps the most remote SOTA summit in Oregon's Northern Cascades. Despite many resources that point out the trail length at 17 miles, measured from the GPS track it shows up as right at 20 miles round trip, with 4500 feet of elevation gain. You won't see many other hikers on these remote trails.
Take NF-4660 from Cascade Lakes Highway. This road follows around west side of Davis Lake. Access is a closed road, peak is easily seen as you approach. Closed road that is overgrown but easy to follow takes you in a spiral around the butte. After roughly 1.5 miles the path becomes inaccessable due to manzanita. I tried to bush whack but decided to call it quites within 200 ft of the summit.
This is an easy drive up 6 pointer. Take highway 58 east then turn off on Cascade lakes National Scenic Byway. After a few miles turn left on NF-4672(Royce Mountain Loop) 43.5499 -121.8594. Continue for 4.5 miles then turn right at 43.5172 -121.91358. The last portion of this road is rough and would recommend SUV's only to make the summit. Once at the end of the road the true summit is roughly 200 ft. which is where I operated from. End of the road is still within the activation zone.
I echo AK5SD's comments. Don't go thru the gate but park in nearby areas at the gate. This road is frequented by fire crews and other Rangers who may be only visiting the lookout for a few minutes. Don't get caught behind a locked gate! And the lookout road is mostly a one-way which would create problems if you met traffic. It's only about a mile hike (750 ft elev gain) from the gate to the lookout.
This is a very easy drive up 6 pointer. On highway 97 go 3 miles north of Chemult and turn right at the Walker Mt LO turn-off (fr94). After a couple miles turn left onto fr9402. There is a sign with nothing on it nailed to a tree at the turn-off. This road will take you all the way to the lookout. It is dusty and bumpy, but most 4x4 suv's should make it no problem. I had to walk around at the summit to get in the required yardage but that was easy as there is alot to explore and views to see. Lots of antenna support at the top and not many bugs for this time of the year.
This was my second activation of Sunset Mountain. The first activation was with K7ZO when we did a triple with 2 other summits to the NW. See that trip report here: Sunset Mountain 2015. This activation was a double with the unactivated Peak 7460. See the full trip report here: Peak 7460
This weekend of August 6-7 2016 there are a number of events going on - the big one is the Western North America Summit-to-Summit Party - see the link below for details and try "chasing" from a summit. Make sure to listen for the weak ones as they may be another activator calling! www.pnwsota.org/content/6-7-august-2016-western-north-america-s2s-party
