Only a few more days until the 2020 Puget Sound S2S Party, this Saturday Aug 8th at Noon (19:00 utc). Frequency will be 146.560 fm. While the focus on frequency 146.56 at Noon will be for S2S contacts, please feel free to start early or stay later to ensure chasers can make contacts as well. 146.54 and 146.58 would be great options to consider.
Elk Mountain is in the Olympic National Park and accessible from a well-maintained forest service road named Obstruction Point Road. The road is not open all year, so check park conditions before you go. The summit is attainable by taking the Obstruction Point Trail and then making the easy traverse up to the base of a large rock formation. A quick stairstep up the rocks brings you to the summit. Total hike from parking to summit is about 1.5 miles.
Summit 5645 (Hurricane Ridge) is in the Olympic National Park and accessible from a well-maintained forest service road named Obstruction Point Road. The road is not open all year, so check park conditions before you go. There is no established trail to this SOTA summit, but it is quite straightforward to follow the ridgeline to the summit and does not require bushwhacking.
Doris Peaks is my name for a set of peaks above Doris Lake.
My stats:
Distance: 9.1 miles
Elevation Gain: 2000 ft
On trail: 6 miles
Off trail: 3.1 miles
Difficulty: Arduous
Quick search of sota summits finds 30 Goat Mountains, exclusive of my favorites: Old Goat Mountain and Scape Goat Mountain. Can unfortunately relate to both of those.
There are six in W7W and 2 in W7W/LC. This blog is about W7W/LC-035. The plan for this trip was found on summitpost: https://www.summitpost.org/goat-mountain/153737. Andrew, K7AHR, and I followed those directions to a successful activation.
Stark Mountain with its fire lookout looks to be an easy 4 pointer as it is an easy drive-to peak on well marked Forest Service roads. However.... the last two miles of the road is gated and the summit is currently closed to the public. See the photo. I did not push it today, being tempted to just walk the two miles. It's closed due to Covid so I'll respect that. Maybe next season.
We built extra time into our schedule in case of an unexpected delay, but I never thought that delay would be a cattle drive. In the drive up to the Pine Mountain Observatory, Mark, W6IA, and I waited as two cowboys and at least one dog herded cattle off the road. We hung back just behind the well-trained border collie while he and his team did their work, and eventually it was clear. [See photo below.]
North Coastal's double-oh-seven peak is a two-pointer reachable by a mild forest road hike and a slightly bushwhack-y final ascent. K7ATN has linked to posts on Peakbagger that give good descriptions of the summit logistics including routes, but here's a quick summary:
On-Trail, 2.5 miles, +2,240 ft
Baldy Mountain is a locally popular on-trail hike to one of the high points in the East Pioneer Mountains. The foundation of the old fire lookout provides some shelter in the event of windy conditions. We saw one other party on the mountain on a nice Saturday during the summer.
NC-009, Sheridan Peak, is a good first-time activation destination. It is an easy half-mile hike (about 300' climb) from the parking lot to the summit, which is broad and flat; lots of good spots to set up. The summit is wooded and shady with a fair amount of old growth, so there are no views. Cell data service is spotty. I managed to spot myself once with SOTA GOAT though I tried four or five times. Two way APRS coverage was excellent and I spotted myself on aprs using a VX8DR.