No View From Summit

Summary - Summiting Monte Carlo in the winter is easy as long as you are good with an eight mile round trip with a 3000 foot climb.  The first three or so miles of the hike is on a maintained forest road through open, old forest. The remainder is the steepest and roughest part of the hike, with big tree fall and some cross country travel.  Your reward for taking on the challenge is a quiet, open summit ringed by old growth trees.  Drive time from Portland is about 80 minutes across the Hood River toll bridge.

I took my kids on a snowshoeing adventure this past weekend.  There were several SOTA activators scheduled to be out activating and we joined them for a fun time.  The distance is around 1.7miles one way but we had very nice snow conditions.

Traffic was very heavy heading up to Mt. Hood and several vehicles turned around but we persevered and it eventually improved.  It did add around 30mins to our arrival time.

Starting from the Frog Lake SNO-PARK and heading across the hwy slightly to the north is the Pacific Crest Trail crossing.

Canuck Peak is a forested summit in far northwestern Montana. The summit is identified only by three summit trails all heading downhill, a sign pointing to American Peak and a recently burned cabin. The trail to Canuck Peak is part of the Pacific Northwest National Scenic Trail system Congressionally designated in 2009. The one-mile trail portion to Canuck Peak is a well-maintained easy grade. The trail traverses’ dense subalpine forest having periodic good crops of summer huckleberries. 

No vehicle access to this peak now. A gate has been added since this write up: http://www.pnwsota.org/blog/k7atn/2019-november-17/peak-2260-or-november-2019

There is no signage at the gate. The gate is a bit up the road from the highway and there is room to turn around or park, but we parked just off the highway.

Three of us did the hike: Eteinne, K7ATN, Guy, NS0TA, and myself.

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.

Summary - Frog Lake Buttes doesn't have views but is a nice hike in the summer and a good snowshoe or ski destination in the winter.  Park at the Frog Lake Sno Park and you have a choice of three routes: a 2.5 mile service road (the usual winter route), a 4.5 mile trail hike that starts on the PCT and winds around to the northwest side of the butte, or a 2.5 mile trail hike up the east side.  Two meter contacts into Portland and Vancouver will be tough without a yagi or j pole, self-spotting is easy, and APRS digis ping.

Peak 6100, which I am calling Lemcke Peak, as the only thing near it with a name is Lemcke Spring.

Summary - Butler Butte is part of a three summit group on Weyerhauser land that is about two hourse from SE Portland. Getting to the summit requires a short hike from a logging road. The summit is small, densely forested and without views. Don't count on two meters to make your four QSOs, cell phone service is marginal at best, and APRS pings get picked up. It can be done as part of a three or four summit day if you plan carefully.

Monte Carlo is a nice trail to an open summit near Underwood, WA. This appears to be the shortest and easiest way to Monte Carlo - a hike of less than a mile and about 800 feet gain. 

On a recent camping trip to Riffe Lake, I activated this summit after activating Burley Mountain (W7W/PL-039).  See my other trip report for directions to get there.

The route we took after Burley was to continue on NF-77 from the junction with NF-7605 and follow it until the junction with NF-202 at (46.344296, -121.927806)  There is a spur at this junction (NF-7700201 that heads north a short 1/4 mile to the summit.

The activation zone is a small clearing surrounded by trees with no view.