W6/CT-130 – Grass Mountain

I like this one because there are several large trees on top, which is kinda unusual for this area. From what I’ve read, most people activate Grass Mountain as a drive up, but I parked the car at the paved road and took a mountain bike up the service road. The ride is under 3 miles and ~1000′ of elevation gain. Parts of the road were deeply rutted after recent rains, and I don’t think a passenger car would make it, however this will likely change once it gets graded. The top sports a few radio towers with equipment shelters. Adjacent to that is a nice grass field, where I setup my HF station. Worked 20M, 30M, 40M with several S2S contacts. I would have loved to stay up there longer, but I wanted to activate a second summit on the next ridge over, Burn Benchmark. I think I’ll bring a hammock and a cooler with a few drinks and a sandwich next time I’m here and spend all day in the trees.

https://sotl.as/summits/W6/CT-130

Total distance: 2.74 mi
Max elevation: 4597 ft
Total climbing: 1082 ft
Total time: 00:57:08
Download file: GrassMountain.GPX

Date:08/01/2022 | Summit:W6/CT-130 (Grass Mountain)

TimeCallsignBandModeNotes
18:32K0MOS14MHzSSBS56 R56 S2S W0C/FR-057
18:44W6TDX10MHzCWS549 R44N
18:45NS7P10MHzCWS55N R55N
18:46WW7D10MHzCWS56 R52
18:47KT5X10MHzCWS54N R54N
18:49NW7E10MHzCWS5NN R44N
18:51W9SSN10MHzCWS33N R22N S2S W6/SC-203
18:52WB7VTY10MHzCWS45N R55N
18:53KX0R10MHzCWS599 R55N
19:12N6ARA14MHzCWS5NN R5NN S2S W6/SC-345
19:16N0DF14MHzCWS55N R57N S2S W7I/SI-177
19:26K6HPX7MHzCWS5NN R53N
19:27KF7HI7MHzCWS339 R53N
19:28K6MAA7MHzCWS339 R22N
19:29KI6PMD7MHzCWS54N R45N
19:31WA6KYR7MHzCWS599 R55N
19:34W6LOR7MHzCWS45N R55N S2S W6/ND-293
19:36N8FN7MHzCWS55N R55N
Service road right before the gate
Ruts that would swallow my commuter car
Deep ruts, bike for scale
The PCT crosses the service road
The only benchmark I could find
The station

Edit – December 5th, 2022. At one time Grass Mountain hosted a fire lookout tower which was destroyed in a fire. The following info was borrowed from firelook.org without any permission whatsoever.

http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/ca/grass-mountain-lookout-site/

Description

The Grass Mountain lookout was a cooperative lookout between the U.S. Forest Service and the Los Angeles County Forestry Department built in 1934. The structure was a California Region revision of the L-4 cabin on a 10 foot open timber tower.

The lookout was destroyed a wildfire in August 1951 and was not rebuilt.