[ragman and rodman]

When Road 4600-370 is open, these two peaks are easily accessible from the end of Road 4600-380 at the trailhead parking area for Broken Top Trail #10... with Moon Mountain being a stone's throw to the southeast and Ball Butte being a stone's throw to the north. Today, 4600-370 was gated at the parking area (~6120') for Todd Lake... and when 4600-370 is gated, 4600-380 is not accessible... so I parked at the lake and started hiking north on Todd Trail #34, which I followed for 1.7 miles... then when the trail started to lose elevation (~6600') I opted to hold my elevation and head cross country for Moon Mountain... where I found a way to stay dry while crossing Crater Creek Ditch (~6850') and then made the easy ascent to the summit (7459') of Moon Mountain from the south after hiking a total of 3 miles. Nice views from the summit of Moon Mountain... especially looking north to South Sister, Broken Top and Ball Butte. From the summit of Moon Mountain I gave up 300 feet of elevation as I went down the north side of the mountain, crossed Road 4600-380 and headed uphill toward the summit ridge of Ball Butte... where things went very smoothly on easy terrain until I reached the south end (~8000') of the summit ridge... where I encountered a steep, 12 foot drop with no comfortable solution. I spent at least 15-20 minutes trying to find a way to deal with the problem before eventually opting to give up 250 feet of elevation and accessing the summit ridge further to the north... where I made the easy walk over to the summit (8091') at the north end of the summit ridge... where the views were similar to those from Moon Mountain, with the exception being that the in-your-face view of Broken Top was blocking South Sister. Leaving the summit of Ball Butte I gave up 700 feet of elevation fairly quickly on its east side before starting to traverse around to its south side as I eventually worked my way down to the parking area for Broken Top Trail #10 at the end of Road 4600-380. Road 4600-380 has a reputation of being one of the worst roads on the planet... and when I was on the summit of Moon Mountain I had made the decision that after doing Ball Butte I would walk the road to see if my Subaru Outback would be able to handle it in the future. So I walked the 1.5 mile road to where it junctions with Road 4600-370... then walked 370 for 1.8 miles before making a short cross-country hike over to rejoin Todd Trail #34... where a one mile trail hike got me back to my car. 10.5 miles roundtrip, gaining 2744 feet of elevation. Photos, trailhead directions and downloadable GPS track of my trip to Moon Mountain and Ball Butte. ..