Glass Buttes in central Oregon is a premier rockhounding location. The summit of Glass Butte is accessed off of Highway 20 up a well-maintained gravel road (GPS track). There are some small water bars on the road, a passenger vehicle could make it up no problem with careful driving.
Pothole Butte, OR August, 2024
I did Pothole Butte after Maklaks. It was not on my list for this trip but you always should keep a back up plan if you have some extra time or one fails right?
I came from Sun Mountain Rd but this is easily accessed from 97 via FS RD 70. Take a left off RD70 at 42.95707, -121.87904. The SW side of the mountain is very steep and cliffs. We drove around the south side to 42.95635, -121.9501.
Maklaks Crater, OR August 2024
Maklaks was the 2nd summit I did while camping at Jackson Kimball State Park, Sand Ridge the evening before, Maklaks the next morning. These two can easily be done in one day. If really ambitious, you could even add Pothole Butte or another Hwy 97 summit.
Sand Ridge, OR August 2024
Sand Ridge was the first of 3 I did while doing a quick spontaneous one night camping trip to Wood River at Jackson F Kimball State Park. After setting up camp, we went to scout it for the next day but were able to get close enough I decided to hike up and activate it that evening.
lookout mountain (the long way) | aug 24
Summary - I first hiked Lookout Mountain via the usual route, High Praire Trail, Tim N7KOM as part of a two day outing that included SOTA summits 6001 and Badger Butte.
larch mtn or (the long way) | aug 24
Summary - Most folks drive to the Larch parking lot and walk up to the observation platform. This is the long way up. You will start from Multnomah Falls on I84 and climb 4200 feet over seven miles.
Goat Mountain WA, August 2024
Goat Mount is a nice steep ridgeline hike. The total distance from the trail head is just over a mile with an elevation gain of 1500 feet. The peak is line of sight to much of Portland, so 2m contacts were plentiful. There are many nice trees for HF antennas.
Bare Mountain
This is another summit I activated with my mountain bike and in this case that turned out to be a mistake as the bushwhack to the top is very steep, very thick, and not at all fun to do in bike shorts and shoes with spd cleats in them.
Calamity Peak
The network of roads that accesses this summit are minimally maintained, and the final approach road isn't maintained at all as there is no active tree harvesting happening at the time I activated the summit. Expect the final access road to continue to degraded and grow over. When I activated this, I was able to ride my bike to the highest point on the road but had to lift it over a large blowdown that you won't be able to drive past or lift a motorcycle over. if you're feeling ambitious, you and another experienced sawyer could get it with a 24" bar.
Vineyard Mountain, Or | July 2024
Start at the Lewisburg Saddle in the OSU research forest.