Ball Butte is a volcanic mountain of the Cascades in Deschutes County, Oregon, United States.[1] Its summit has an elevation of 8,091 feet and is located southeast of Broken Top1
KK7HJL, N7KOM, Lance the dog and XYL DF joined me on this outing to Ball Butte on a fine September morning. There is no established trail to the butte but it is relatively easy to navigate the SE Ridge to the top. Unfortunately, the previous activation reports and published tracks take to you a false summit, that is not in the AZ. We looked for a route along the summit ridge but found we we were blocked by 2 gendarmes that looked impassable. We had to descend back down the ridge we had come up and find another route to the true summit.
Orange: Planned, Blue: Actual
We ended up in the bowl of the butte, crossing over what looked like rubble from an ancient land slide that created the bowl to a chute that appeared to have an ascension path. The surface was very loose lava rock for the first 20 yards, then became just loose rock and sand but was bordered by some larger solid rock that made the ascent doable, if not easy.
The chute crests out in the AZ with the summit block just to the South. The summit block is small but easy to climb up. There is a very nice large meadow on top with plenty of room for 3-4 activators to spread out and not interfere with one another.
We setup the Arrow 3 Element Yagi and began calling CQ. We made several S2S and other 2M contacts relatively quickly so I decided to get up on HF and work some SSB, which I do much less often. I was able to pickup several S2S on 40M SSB then switched to CW. CW was surprising less productive, but I was still able to pick up a handful on 40 and a few more on 20.
XYL DF was staring to get noticeably restless, as was Lance to dog and my CW copy was deteriorating so I called QRT. I had my earphones in and hadn’t noticed that 2 other hikers had arrived and so I said hello but they weren’t very interested in engaging. I hollered at N7KOM to see how he was doing, he had already torn down his antenna and was back on 2M. KK7HJL was putting her 10M rig in her pack so I quickly disassembled my station and ate a sandwich prior to the descent.
We descended the same chute we had come up. We had to be pretty careful because the surface was pretty unstable in the middle section but we all safely made it to the bottom, Lance the dog leading the way.
The hike back to the truck was very nice. We took a slightly more direct path than we had on the ascent and were able to “scree ski” down a slope of cinder. I was really glad I had decided to pick up a new pair of hiking gators the evening before, they kept the cinder and dust out of my shoes.
Back at the truck we were greeted by a friendly forest service employee checking wilderness permits, which we had in my pack. There was another guy taking a survey of users of the forest so XYL DF served as our Communication Agent and took the survey.
The drive out was uneventful, other than having to back up to allow a couple of other vehicles through.
FS-370/380 are both unmaintained roads and high clearance/4WD vehicles are highly recommended. FS-370 from Todd Lake to the intersection with FS-380 is passable in a less capable vehicle but FS-380 is very rough. I have driven both in the past in a front wheel drive Honda Element and we did see several passenger cars in the parking area but you have been fairly warned. There is not an established trail and the approach involves some steep and loose cinder slopes. I would classify this as an intermediate to advanced hike, requiring good fitness and route finding skills. Ball Butte has fantastic 360 degree views of Broken Top, Tam McCarthur rim, Paulina Peak, Bend and eastward, Mt Bachelor, Tumalo and South Sister. A Central Cascade Wilderness Permit and NW Forest Pass are required for this hike. The Wilderness permits are available from Recreation.gov for $1 per person.
W7MTB: Amateur Radio Notes 