The Wright County highpoints are located in French Lake Township, Section 8, in the Stanley Eddy Memorial Park Reserve, formerly known as the Stanley Eddy Memorial County Park.
I climbed them with my son, Matthew on May 8, 2004, the day before Mother's Day. This was Matthew's first county HP other than the 13 states he's done, and my 19th.
Coming from our home in Anoka County, we approached from the south, taking Wright county road 37 west, then county road 2 (Rhoades Avenue NW) going north. I first turned east on 40th Street NW into the southern unit of the park, where there is a parking area, trailhead and trail map. After consulting the trail map, I saw that we were close to the signed HP, so we took off up the trail. After about a hundred yards, I saw another trail map, this time with a "You are Here" star, showing that we were at the southern branch of the trail system. The highpoints are accessible from there, but are a little farther hike. Matthew would not have appreciated the longer walk, so we got back in the truck and drove to the 45th Street entrance, Stanley Eddy's Southeast Unit. On the trail map below, it is the northern road going east about a half mile, and turning south just before the jog in the road around the depression.
The SE unit parking lot is a little smaller and farther from the trail head than the South Unit. There is an outhouse near the parking lot.
We walked through this depression to get to the trail head.
This is actually a picture of the trail head at the South unit, but is practically identical to the SE unit. At this time of the year in Minnesota, the grass is usually still having a tough time recovering from the winter, but the grass here was lush and had a neat trim. The large dandelion population was the first of those flowers I have seen this year.
There is a picnic table about 50 yards away from the trail head.
The marked HP is just a couple of hundred yards into the system from the SE unit, about 4 minutes with, with an elevation gain of about 60 feet from the parking lot. The "French" benchmark is right next to the sign.
From the first point to the second one, it is an 8-minute walk, some trails and some bushwacking southeast through a saddle and a lot of fallen trees and mostly light foliage up to the second point. I was without my GPS, so I used terrain association to reach the second point. Although I was good at Land Navigation in the army, I depended heavily on my compass, which I also did not have on this trip. It's good to use those skills once in a while. Anyway, the second point is not marked, so we walked around, canvassing the area. Matthew had had enough walking and didn't feel like posing:
We returned the way we came. Total time was about 30 minutes including rest stops.
We continued on our way to my Mom's house in Renville County to visit. We were in a hurry, so did not stop at any other HP's, though I had originally planned to visit the McLeod County HP, which is on the way.
The Crow River, which forms most of the boundary between Wright and Hennepin counties, takes a sharp bend to the northwest just before draining into the Mississippi River. Because of that, Wright County is not globbable with Anoka County, my current residential county, so that it is temporarily colored blue on my completion map, pending the completion of Hennepin or Sherburne County. It stayed that way until September 4, 2004, when I completed Sherburne County.
| Family Member | COHP Count |
|---|---|
| Mark | 19 |
| Matthew | 14 |
Bob Packard (May 22, 2001).
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http://www.topozone.com
Minnesota Atlas & Gazeteer by Delorme, 3rd Edition, 2001.
| File Name: | |
| Written by: | Mark Ness |
| Last Revised by: | Mark Ness |
| on: |