Exposed Trail

Nice easy walk, bike or drive up. Can be VERY windy.

Full report at https://w7mtb.blogspot.com/2022/11/activation-report-w7oce-068-pine.html

Very easy walk in all seasons. Summer is very busy.

Full trip report at https://w7mtb.blog/2022/11/activation-report-w7oce-188-lava-butte.html

Skalkaho gets its name from the area in Salish meaning ‘many trails’.  Unrelated to the name, the summit does have several trails converging near its summit.  I chose the trail coming from the west off FS road #364.  This trail has many views of other SOTA summits and to the west the much higher elevation Bitterroot Range. 

The trail is well defined and approaches within ¼ mile of the summit, an easy off-trail scramble. 

Four curious mule deer greeted me near the summit and hung around.  Interested in CW, I thought?  

Dome Shaped Mountain is a scenic and lightly traveled trail near Hamilton Montana. Much of the hike overlooks a large portion of the Stony Mountain Roadless Area. Alpine larch dominate the summit with brilliant yellow fall color in early October contrasting with green whitebark pine. Most of the trail system is in unburned forest with large wildfire burned areas to the east. Two unsigned trail junctions are worthy to note as they could be easily missed on the return trip.  See the directions narrative.

SOTA Summit 7560 could easily be termed “Magruder Ridge High Point”. It is located on Magruder Ridge approximately 1.0 mile south of Magruder Mountain that it dominates by a mere 138’. Magruder Mountain and Ridge are named for the massacre of Lloyd Magruder and his party of four others in 1863 near this area. See sign photo. The summit is mostly forested but has views of other highpoints in the Selway Bitterroot Wilderness and Salmon Mountain Lookout in the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness.

Long Tom Mountain is a long forest road drive mostly through burned forest. The current Long Tom Lookout built in 1977 is ½ mile south of the SOTA summit. Interesting that reports from The Recorder Herald, Salmon ID, state that the Spring Creek Road to the Lookout was completed in 1932 and that the first radio receiving and sending unit was installed at the Lookout in 1934 and high frequency radio in 1950. 

Devils Point is a mostly open snag-covered summit with excellent views of the surrounding Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness and the Hell’s Half Acre Lookout.    Much of this area has experienced very large wildfires over the last several of decades and abundant snags exist. Operators should be aware of snag hazards when selecting your operating position and hiking especially on windy days.   

Trail Miles: 3.0 Roundtrip

Elevation Gain: 700’  Loss: 200’ 

Summary - Birkenfeld Mountain from the east side is a steep, mostly pathless, ridge bushwhack to a brushy forested summit.   The approach via CG2020, is a logging road with some very steep sections that can also be used to reach Greenleaf Peak.  Drive time to the trailhead was about 90 minutes.

This was the first activation of Middle Stack Mountain in Nevada.  A huge lesson learned (again) is that map resources conflict when it comes to roads, both roads that do not exist, and roads that do not appear on maps. Even when cross referencing maps with Google Earth you can’t be certain that a geological feature that “looks” like a road actually is one!  As a first activation, there was no SOTA summit access information, though there were a couple of Peakbagger trip reports. These were somewhat helpful, but they provided no detailed information.

Already directions to Drake but I did it slightly different. I hiked the south side of Light Peak sidehill from where the road to the Lookout switchbacks, until I got to the road going part way to Drake. There is decent trail or road most of the way just not the sidehill at the beginning and the last ascent, but pretty self explanatory. Robin N7HAP was on Light Peak, a drive up, and he picked me up on the east side of Light Peak so I got out of the final climb up Light. Took it easy on Light Peak for another activation.