The Spence Mountain trail system has been in development for the past few years on private land that was purchased by a land trust to guarantee ongoing public access. Dirt Mechanics of Bend, OR was contracted to develop over 50 miles of single track trails on the property. There are 3 SOTA summits in the area, however W7O/CE-198 is on private property and has never been activated. On our drive past the gated access road, there is a sign for Rock Creek Ranch, so an intrepid activator might be able to reach out and ask permission but we were there for riding so we didn’t bother.

The entire mountain is closed to motorized vehicles with gates on across all of the roads that look drivable, so plan to hike/bike if you want to activate. The shortest hike is about 4 miles from a gate near Highway 140. There is enough space to park a vehicle or two in front of the gate. The trail is used heavily bike bikers and hikers alike, so please be aware of your surroundings as a rider could be coming down quickly.

I was with N7OLE and N7KOM and our goal was to activate Spence Mountain then follow up with W7O/CE-286 if time allowed. As it turned out the Spence Mountain Trail took up most of our energy and all of our time so we will have to return for CE-286.

The Spence Mountain Trail climbs about 1800 ft in 7 miles. Its not ever terribly steep but climbs steadily without much relief. There are plenty of gorgeous views to the South and West. The summit has plenty of space for multiple operators, with trees to throw a wire up into.

We started out at the Eagle Ridge Rd Trailhead and took the Mazama trail along the shore and up to the beginning of Spence Mountain Trail. From there the real climbing starts. It took us about two hours to reach the summit. Once on top we quickly deployed our rigs, Tim [N7KOM] on his KH-1 and I and Randi [N7OLE] on our KX2 tethered to the K6ARK End fed random wire. Tim started on 15M and we started on 40M SSB. Conditions were sporadic but we were able to get 4 SSB contacts before I switched over to CW to pickup a friend who couldn’t hear us on SSB. Then I worked 30M CW for a while, lost of QSB left me with only a handful of CW contacts.

After about 40 mins, we decided to head back down to make sure the doggos were not getting too hot in the van. We took a fun route down via Captain Jack and Shoalwater trails. Round trip the ride was 13 miles of great single track, definitely worth the drive to Klamath Falls.