On-Trail Hike (5-miles, 1,500 ft)

Katsuk Butte is a nice little peak near both South Sister and Devil's Hill
in the Deschutes National Park near the Mt. Bachelor ski area. It's easily
reached from the Devil's Lake campground parking area. You will need to be
comfortable with cross country travel via map/compass/GPS as there are no
trails to this summit.

Katsuk Butte can be conveniently coupled with an activation of South Sister. I
spent the night in the very nice campground on the banks of Devil's Lake,
activated Katsuk Butte late in the afternoon, and left for South Sister early

This is a fabulous hike on a nice trail that climbs to the Patrol Mountain Lookout on the edge of the Scapegoat Wilderness.  The top offers stupendous views of the Scapegoat and Bob Marshall Wilderness areas.  Snow drifts may present difficulties into the first week of July dur

To access trailead From Highway 200 - take the Copper Creek road north.  The road is a well maintained gravel road until after the upper crossing of Copper Creek, where it becomes somewhat more primitive.  The road hairpins eastwards at this creek crossing, climbs gently, then hairpins again westwards and begins climbing more steeply.  Turn right (north) at the first opportunity.  This portion of the road is narrow and ingrown, with brush which may scratch wide vehicles.  It is an "easy" 4wd or a "some clearance advised" 2wd road.  The road will soon enter a st

It took me 2 days to get my 4 contacts at Tolmie Peak. I drove an hour and a half from Buckley, WA down HI 162 to Mowich lake. I then hiked the 2.9 miles past Lake Euclid to Tolmie Peak and experienced strong winds and driving rain to get heard. 

I bought my Rainier park pass on the way to Mowich lake and a Fee Stop, $20. 

There is clean water at Lake Euclid and while the rain is falling so are the streams. there were 2 waterfalls along the trail. 

Home is Tacoma, WA, but since I acquired lightweight QRP gear a couple of years ago, I’ve been tempted to take it with me when I travel. I finally did so, on a trip to visit family in New England.

A nice fall day, good company of Tim, KG7EJT and Dexter the SOTA Dog, a successful joint First Actvation of Cowboy Mountain (including a S2S contact with VA7JBE/7 on the summit of Mount Baker) and nobody else anywhere near the summit itself, made for a very nice outing.

OK, so it seems that I jumped into this SOTA thing a little too quickly and made a couple of mistakes.  Thankfully, there are several people who have contacted me with some great advice for getting on track to doing things right.  Hopefully I will have better luck going forward.

Full Blog Here: http://kf7pxt.blogspot.com/2015/10/hamilton-buttes-w7wpl-023-sota.html

A crisp Fall-like day, sparse crowds and a successful activation made for a pleasant, if short day.  The route to the summit, and the Activation itself were changed, and cut short, by a large heard of mountain goats which were straddling the ridge running between the SE Summit (incorrectly labeled as Mount Fremont) and the Middle Summit, (True Summit).