Carlton County's High Point is located in Section 19, within the boundaries of Fond du Lac State Forest. It is criss-crossed with numerous ski trails through and around the swamps. I visited there on November 20, 2004, the day after a rainfall in that area.
In February of 2001, Edward Earl parked on Minnesota State Highway 210 southeast of the HP and walked there on a snowmobile trail.
In the spring of that year, Bob Packard noticed that Earl's snow-covered route, had melted into a swamp, so he drove to the lookout tower and hiked from there.
I took S.H. 210 west from I-35 for 18 miles to (gravel) Carlton County Road 120 (a right turn), and took and immediate right north on Dahlman Road for one mile to Krogh Road, where I turned right. I followed Krogh Road for 1/2 mile, where it curved left (all these roads are C.R. 120), then 1.05 miles north on Larson Road, then east for 1/2 mile, where it curves north again past the lookout tower. About 1/4 mile north on that road is a jeep trail shown on both DeLorme and the topographical map going straight toward the HP. It is gated and marked as a private road. I was not in the mood to challenge a private property owner, so I continued north another mile or so past a sign for skiing trails to a dead end, where there was a shooting range with hundreds of shotgun shells on the ground.
I parked there, and started hiking into the woods by way of a very narrow trail. It quickly disappeared, and I returned to the car, and then back to the ski sign.
I parked in a grassy parking lot near the trail head. At that point, I was 2.09 miles straight-line distance from the top. By trail, it would be much further.
Among the many ski trails in the area, one leads to the high point, within about 10 feet of it. A jeep or 4-wheeler could drive there with little difficulty.
This map shows the ski trails and their difficulty levels. Each junction is marked with a letter on a post like this one.
The route I had originally planned to take is partially depicted on this map.
Several of the trails go through swampland, and, in the winter, being solid ice and covered with snow, it would be of little concern to a skiier, but to a hiker in mid-autumn, they would be ice-cold.
There is a self-registration box, but I did not sign it. I had the idea that it was solely for skiiers.
The trails are mostly wide and smooth, like the one in the picture above, and wound through the forest, passing by areas cut down, passing through swamps, up and down hills, and intersecting with other trails.
After 15 minutes on the trail, I came to the signed post (I didn't notice the letter on it--"M" I think). I turned left there, toward point "B", but it became too swampy, so I turned around, and went toward the "L" post, using my GPS to pick the most likely trail to get me there. As I remember it, there was deeper than ankle-deep water, partially covered with ice on this part of the trail. I could not find an easy way around it, so just walked through. Quite a difference from late summer, when I hiked through warm water in Kanabec and Pine Counties.
My notes at this point contradict my own memory of it, but I turned left at the "L" post 29 minutes after first encountering the ski trail map. Then, after 5 minutes, I turned right at the "C" post, where a large area was cleared out. The "C" post itself was bucked into the woods. I continued on the trail hoping to soon encounter the "D" post, where I would turn left towards "E" which was near the HP. I didn't see the "D" post, but arrived at the "K" post 10 minutes after leaving "C". On another trail map somewhere in the area, I noticed that the route from "D" to "E" was scratched off.
At "K", a wide trail goes to the rght, and a narrow trail goes to the left. I don't know what possessed me to go left at this point, but I did. This trail was wide enough to drive a vehicle on. My GPS was showing that I was going the opposite direction from what I wanted, but I kept going. Then I became curious about the trail I was on, and programmed the GPS to go to the trail head of the original planned route, and I was headed straight toward it. That meant that I was on the jeep road that I wanted to be on in my original plan, the one that was blocked off as Private, just that I was going the wrong way. After 10 minutes of that, I turned around, this time going straight at "K" toward and on the narrow trail.
Even this trail was wide enough to drive on, but not with a standard passenger car. It wound around, slightly deviating from east. I then set my GPS to go to the Cromwell Benchmark. I did not see the Geological marker. It may have been destroyed, though there was no tree harvesting going on in that area.
I continued onward looking for the wide trail that, on the topo map, made a large loop to the north, then east, then south, to rejoin the narrow trail just past the benchmark. I didn't see it, but I kept going anyway.
A few hundred yards before the top, the trail road descended into foot-deep or deeper water, which I could not have walked through. Fortunately I was able to walk around it.
I got to the HP area 29 minutes after passing point "K" the second time, that is to say, 1 hour and 47 minutes after leaving the car.
The HP is only about a 10-foot bushwhack off the trail. Another hill south of it looked about as high, but after being on both, I'm sure it was lower.
At this point, I was confident that I could find my way back without my GPS, so I turned it off. I headed down from the HP toward the car, intending to follow my original planned route all the way back to the trail head, then along the road to the car. I became concerned when I did not encounter the deep water dip, but kept going. I got to a four-way intersection and was certain that I had not seen that on the way up. I turned my GPS back on, and, of course, I was off course quite a ways south. I followed one of the roads going west, but that eventually wound too far off, so I backtracked and followed another trail going north back to the benchmark waypoint, but that ended at the woods. Not wanting to bushwhack when I knew it wasn't necessary, I turned around, resolving to return to the HP area itself if that's what it took to get back to my path.
42 minutes after leaving the HP, I was back on the trail I wanted, a distance that should have been covered in less than 5 minutes, if I had not been so arrogant/confident in myself.
I continued on the trail and road until I came to a "Private Trail" sign, which was the same jeep road as the first one I encountered, just the other end of it. Again, I wanted to avoid personal privacy issues. Just before that sign is a trail going north. As shown on the ski trail map, it curves significantly to the west before going toward the "L" post. I stayed on that trail through "M" back to the parking lot, a 52-minute hike.
Altogether, I spent over 4 hours out of the car, a hike that should have taken less than 3 hours.
I got back to S.H. 210, then north on I-35, then north on S.H. 33 toward the Saint Louis County High Point.
| Family Member | Count |
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| Mark | 69 |
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http://www.topozone.com
Minnesota Atlas & Gazeteer by Delorme, 3rd Edition, 2001.
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| Written by: | Mark Ness |
| Last Revised by: | Mark Ness |
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