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Midland • Irion • Kimble • Mason • Concho • Menard • Runnels • |
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Continuing a tradition from the past couple of years, I headed out to Texas during my Spring Break for a county highpoint harvest. This proved to be a very lucrative trip, with 22 counties successfully completed. I did a bunch from all over, from the flatty in Midland County to a few in the Hill Country, to a bunch up along the Red River along the Oklahoma boundary. The weather ranged from nice to stormy, including one day where I evaded some twisters near Abilene. Bob Martin accompanied me on the first handful, then left to go on his way, while I spent a few more days on my own.
The highpoint of Midland county is just a small parcel of land coming in from neighboring Ector County from the west. It's not a hill or bluff or break, just a little bit of land that swells ever so slightly higher than the surrounding lands. Midland County is about as flat as a county can get. And even then I managed to botch my first attempt at the highpoint from a year ago.
I was here in March 2002, map in hand, overly confident. Immediately I sensed trouble: new roads and a new freeway complicated matters since getting onto the right dirt track to the highpoint area was no longer as trivial as it should have been. Well, I did find the road okay, drove in, then came upon more trouible: the bends in the road were not agreeing with the map, and a strategic Y-junction shown on the map wasn't there either. So I drove in some more, then just sort of "guessed". I had a GPS, but when I photocopied my map, I had cropped off the UTM figures on the side of the map, essentially rendering my GPS useless here (I had not pre-entered any waypoints). So I exited, and drove into Odessa. There, I pulled into a gas station and assessed this little journey. I was not satisfied with it at all. Why was it this confusing?
I decided to try again, so I drove back to this road, but before driving in, I located myself near the Ector/Midland county line signs, getting a UTM longitude value for my GPS. At least I'd have one coordinate known. Of course, the roads were exactly the same as they were a half-hour earlier. I tried to use landmarks (chuckle) and bends/junctions in the road, but nothing was matching up. Barnacles! I futzed around some more up here, this flat, low scrub, unremarkable piece of land. I hiked a few areas, took some GPS readings, then decided I would check these against the maps when I got home. Alas, I had missed the highpoint region. I had come close, essentially nicking the southernmost edge of the area, but not good enough to count.
So when Bob and I discussed or 2003 trip, he admitted he was not entirely happy with his Midland County visit from some time in the past, so we agreed to go in together. This time, we had more complete maps and GPS waypoints galore, and we found the area with no problem. The Y-junction that I had been hoping I could use as a landmark for guidance turned out to be there still, but one of the roads had been torn up and mature scrub was growing on it. You wouldn't have noticed except walking onto it, where you could still see some vestiges of the old road. In any case, we both "got" Midland County properly, and got moving.
After our successful "redo" of Midland County, Bob Martin and I drove about an hour toward Big Spring for an attempt of the Howard County highpoints. In this short time the weather went from sunny with few clouds to heavy rain. We were not successful with Howard County, eventually giving up after 3 tries from various directions, each time coming upon locked and posted gates. The heavy rain wasn't motivating us, either, and we decided to abandon Howard County and move on toward Irion county, about 70 miles to the southeast via Sterling City.
Irion county has nine areas that breach the 2,740-foot level. Seven of these areas are found in the Ketchum Oil Field, southeast of the intersection of FM-2469 and TX-163, about 10 miles north of the town of Barnhart. The other two are on Ketchum Mountain, about eight air-miles to the north-northeast. This is a case where inconsistent scaling from one topo map to another makes what otherwise should be a very easy highpoint into somethig requiring a little more work. First of all, the two areas on Ketchum Mountain can be ignored outright: the highest point reaches 2,741 feet, and this is superceded by two spot-elevations down (or, should I say, up?) in the oil field. So we concentrated on just the seven areas in the oil field. The "Ketchum Mountain" quad map contains most of these areas, while the adjoining "Rocker B Ranch" quad map to the west contains a carry-over of the largest area from the other map, and this area is the biggest, and contains two intermediate 2,750-foot contours. In 2002, Bob and I visited this county but only visited the two 2,750-foot areas, including one that gets to 2,752 feet. A sight-level and GPS was useful to pinpoint our locations; the smaller of the two 2,750-foot areas isn't prominent at all in the field. Afterwards, Bob had second thoughts about not exploring the other 2,740-foot areas and he decided to not count Irion as done, and I went with his decision.
So here we were a year later. We drove in the access road, located along FM-2469 about 4 miles east of TX-163. I parked at an oil pump and rode with Bob. We visited the largest two of these remaining areas, walked in them a bit, sight-leveled and each time concluded that at most the elevation gain was about a foot at the most. We also made a hike of about 3/8 of a mile, round trip, to get within a third contour, this one closest to the highway but off of the access road a bit. The map shows this to have a spot elevation of 2,743 feet, which is likely the height of the highest point within this contour. Three small areas off to the south were left alone; this land does not feature the unlikely rocks or sudden elevation "spikes" that would vault one of the tiny
areas into contention. After knocking off these large areas, we feel confident that the two 2,750-foot areas that we visited in 2002 were the highpoints, and I'd give credit to anyone just visiting those areas. The road in is public access, there are no fences and no restrictive signs of any sort. The scape is pretty much the usual mesquite, juniper and low cactus; on this day we had lots of blooming wildflowers, too. Very pretty. That night we car-camped in the hinterlands of Sutton county to the south.
The area is named for the Ketchum boys, Tom and Sam, two brothers who became outlaws. They were born "near" modern-day Irion county (actually a bit to the east), near the time of the Civil War. While they may have been outlaws, they weren't very good ones: Tom attempted to hold up a train that his brother had held up not long before. The train people were ready for him and wounded him on the spot; he was arrested, tried and hanged in 1901. His brother Sam had been killed during the previous robbery attempt.
Kimble county's highpoint is very easy: it's just a single area of 2,460 feet along highway FM-1674 in the northwest part of the county. Bob and I came to this county after a night camping near the Sutton County highpoints just to the west. We tried for Sutton's highpoints but quickly gave up when we hit locked gates miles from the highpoint areas. So on to Kimble. Bob had already done Kimble's highpoint years before, but he offered to go with me anyway. We parked along the highway roughly four miles south of the county line sign. The highpoint area is just about 300 feet off the road. We found a gate a bit to the south, and walked in from there. After a tiny bit of sight-leveling, we both called it good. Bob took a photo of me. This otherwise easy county had significance to me: it was my 300th county highpoint overall! From here we drove on into Junction, then up toward the Mason County highpoint.
Caption for the photo at left: When I took this photo I had this figured as my 300th county highpoint so I made up a simple sign to commemmorate this fact. But later on after some re-figuring my stats this highpoint got knocked up to #297. So with the magic of computer photo touch-up, my sign is still accurate.
Bob and I came to Mason county from Kimble County vai the city of Junction on Interstate-10. From here we headed northeast along US-377, then south and east along FM-385 and FM-1871 into Mason county. The map shows what seems to be a very promising route: an improved road snakes south off of FM-1871 to a house (?) near a radio tower inside one of the two 2,160-ft contours found atop Monument Mountain (technically, the range is called the Blue Mountains. Monument Mountain refers to the actual summit bump. The Blue Mountains are really just one huge mesa that stretches for miles). Alas, the road was gated at the highway and clearly private, so things didn't look promising. Frankly, I was ready to give up and move on, since I had lots of other things I wanted to do that day. But Bob was persuasive enough to convince me to go check out another possible route, this one coming in from the east along a dirt county road (Mill Creek Road). Everything was gated in these parts, and I had no reason to believe that the one sketchy road we were interested in would be ungated. I went down this long county road with Bob, fully expecting to find fencing and posted notices. Seemed like a waste of time.
Well, I was wrong! And happily so, for that matter. We found what seemed to be an abandoned residence and an open, unlocked, unposted gate. Still a little unsure if we were in the right area, Bob broke out his GPS unit, and rode with me as I drove in a little side road. Soon, Bob confirmed we were on the side road shown on the topo as the one getting very close to the summit! So I drove in with Bob shotgun. We had to pass one gate (unlocked, no notices) and drive past some lazy cattle. We managed to get as far as the windmill shown on the topo at spot elevation 1,847 feet. A second "gate" blocked our access; it was not locked but just some old metal gates and whatnot leaning up against a fence. Since we were now within 1.5 miles of the top, we decided to park and head in. We breached this second gate, entered into a field and a Y-junction, and proceeded to take the left fork. This turned out to be the incorrect choice. But we followed the left fork as it went in toward the mesa's sides. We found some cattle paths that helped us enter the brush, and in short time we were on the mesa top... but clearly not on any useful road. Bob's GPS showed us to be well southeast of the summit. The trees were thick, and line-of-sight navigation worked intermittently.
After about 20 minutes of battling the trees we came out to an ATV track, which led to a more substantial track, which eventually led to the road we should have been on in the first place. No problem. We had the top within view, and a short hike up a moderate slope, and some brief battles with tree branches, and we were on top! The hike from my truck had taken about 45 minutes. The top is about 200 feet long, and mostly flat with some trees and low cactus scrub amid grassy clumps. The other 2,160-foot contour area mentioned earlier was visible to our west ... it has been graded flat and was clearly lower than where we were. After about 10 minutes we started down, following the good road all the way back to my truck. I was curious as to how we missed this good road going in. At the aforementioned Y-junction, the two roads look about equal in quality. If we'd followed the right fork about 200 feet we would have seen that the quality improved considerably. Live and learn. We had been successful and only lost about 20 minutes anyway. The weather was warm and somewhat humid. We got back to my truck and drove out to Bob's truck, then convoyed back toward the US-377 junction, where Bob and I parted ways. My thanks, as always, to Bob for being so persistent. I very likely would have let this one go if I'd been by myself.
From here I looked at the McCullock highpoint, which I didn't do, then drove on to tackle the Concho and Menard pair.
April 2005: I received an email from the landowners of the Blue Mountain Peak Ranch. They are very friendly and run a guest ranch at this mountain. Their link is Blue Mountain Peak Ranch. When in the area, look them up!
A single meandering hill located along the Concho-Menard County line, way out near their respective westernmost boundaries, conveniently gives both of these counties their highest points. The hilltop, so to speak, lies within Menard County to the south. There are two 2,430-foot contours within Menard County, one with a spot elevation of 2,432 feet, while two ridgelines coming into Concho County to the north both reach 2,410 feet, and thus serving as Concho County's highest areas. One has a spot elevation of 2,413 feet.
I came to this area originally from the south after completing Mason County with Bob Martin. I drove up through the city of Menard. Bob had done these already but he gave me good information about this hike and these areas. In particular, he suggested coming in from the north since some (?) of the southern approaches are gated. Bob was not going to be with me on this hike as he was now heading home to Tucson. Coming out of Menard, I went north a little bit on US-83 and saw an FM highway (FM-3463) that veered west, right toward where I wanted to be. But a sign along this highway mentions the locked gates up ahead, so I turned around. Serves me right for doubting Bob! I eventually wormed my way toward the remote highpoint areas via long and interminable local roads from the north in Concho county, generally following the road net south and west of Eden (for reference, US-87 west out of Eden, then FM-176 south to the community of Live Oak, then any number of possible routes following local county (dirt) roads many miles west and south to the southwest corner of Concho County). A large radio tower serves as an easy reference point for many miles around. I needed to find this tower, then start my hike from there. I came to this tower around 3 in the afternoon, in good weather.
The plan was to hike due west of the tower, which lies virtually on the same latitude parallel as the two Concho highpoint areas. I used my GPS to key in the radio tower's position, and my compass to stay on a westerly bearing. My hike almost didn't get started! I nearly busted my ankle scaling the fence at the tower complex when I landed funny in some uneven rocks on the other side. It hurt for a bit but I walked it off. Roughly speaking, the first Concho highpoint area is about 1 mile west of the tower, and the second area about another mile farther west. The first 0.7 mile or so was through moderate tree cover: not enough to make for slow going but enough to limit my line-of-sight navigation. Not a problem. I came to a fence line at about 0.8 mile, faithfully shown on the topo map. This proved to be tricky to hop as all the posts were flimsy; I found one beefy one and used it to get over. Some cattle watched me. I just put my head down and walked right past them. The land was more open here.
Soon, I reached the first area, the largest area and the one with the 2,413 spot elevation. I took a GPS reading to ensure my latitude was good (it was) and I took some time here to walk in some looping arcs to pace this high ground. While it was clear I was on high ground, I wanted to be sure. The ground was clearly higher to my south ... in neighboring Menard County. The "fattest" part of the 2,410-foot contour coincides with the spot elevation and I found this with no problem. Satisfied, I continued west toward a second fence line, again shown accurately on the topo. I could see the second Concho highpoint ridge just a little bit ahead of me.
It was about here I noticed a work truck and a trailer plopped up on the hill area to my left, roughly where the Menard highpoints were. I was about a half-mile north and unless they were looking hard, I wasn't very noticeable, even in the mostly open terrain. As I approached this second fence, I noticed a herd of sheep. Damn! Sheep are very skittish and sure to draw attention. Sure enough, they all freaked out when they saw me, and took off running to the north. I decided to take a water break amid a small batch of trees to bide some time and allow the sheep to get their energy out of their stupid sheep systems. I also decided to work up my courage and go meet and greet whoever was in this trailer. As I walked up toward them, the lay of the land was such that I became more hidden as a result! They were up on a hillock, while I was below, hidden by the slopes. Well, I decided to forego making new friends and continued west. I hopped this second main fence, immediately entered some thick tree cover, and decided to play "lay low and out of sight" with the truck/trailer guys. (I should admit I never saw any person so it may very well be there was no one actually there.) The second Concho highpoint ridge was reached quickly. No one area stands out as "highest", but I walked the spine as best as I could. I was due north of the two Menard county highpoint areas, one of which I could see about 3/4 mile to my south.
So I continued on toward the Menard highpoints. I came to a third main fence running east-west. The map shows this fence to be inside Menard county by about 1,000 feet, and my GPS reading confirmed this. The fence makes getting the northern of the two Menard highpoint areas easy, as it runs right over the top. Otherwise, the gentleness of the relief would make this northern area largely guesswork and GPS dependent. I made a quick visit to visit this northern area, then hopped the fence to seek out the (likely) higher southern area, with the 2,432-ft spot elevation. After some lengthy walking through intermittent trees, I came to what appeared to me to be the highest ground. It clearly dropped to my south, west and north, so I paced east a little bit to cover the general area encompassed by the 2,430-foot contour. While I couldn't declare what particular rock was the highest point, I did spend about 15 minutes walking the area, confirming with my GPS and by visual, and left feeling 100% confident I had been in the right place. Cattle dotted the area, which was a little more open with less tree cover.
Satisfied I had visited the four necessary areas to claim Concho and Menard Counties, I began the long walk out, pretty much following my route exactly (including hopping the fences at the same places). The sheep were long gone, and the cattle had even moved to go feed. I walked briskly, but I did spend a little extra time at the eastern Concho area to walk the other fat part a little bit. I was back to my truck around 6 p.m., and it was getting dusky as I finally came back out to pavement and civilization. This hike entailed almost 6 miles round trip hiking, plus a gross cumulative gain of nearly 300 feet, when I include all my gains and drops. It was a very pretty area: lots of green, trees, rolling hills. I was expecting more ugly scrub but was thankful I had very little of that. The topo map was absolutely vital, and it helped that the main fences shown on the map were in their proper places in the field. A windmill roughly in the center of all this also served as a useful navigation item.
This was it for new highpoints for today. I was pretty beat and eventually drove north a ways and stayed in the town of Ballinger, putting me near the Runnels County highpoint for the next morning.
I spent the night in Ballinger, the county seat of Runnels county, and set out to get an early start. I had a lot on the docket, including a number of highpoints requiring some actual hiking, so I wanted to get moving at sun-up. Being in Ballinger placed me within easy driving of Moro Mountain, a lone mesa in far-north Runnels county that is the county highpoint. I started by trying the northern approach. Driving up US-83 past Winters and into the tiny community of Bradshaw, I followed some local county roads about 2 miles to a locked gate in the middle of the road, almost 3 miles north of the mesa. I returned to US-83, went back south to Winters then east on FM-1770 about 5.5 miles to county road 171 on my left (north), across from the junction with FM-2647. I went north two miles to CR-172, right briefly, then left onto CR-173, heading back north. The road turned east again then came to another gate after about 3 miles. There were no posted notices on the gate. I parked my truck, got suited up, put a note in my truck's window, and started in. I was at spot elevation 2,029 feet, about one air mile southwest of the summit.
I walked north on the road's continuation for a half mile, then followed it east as it dropped through a natural break, losing about 60 feet in the process. Soon, the road came to another gate. I hopped this gate and immediately entered into the tree cover. At first, it was sporadic trees with lots of low grasses and cactus; cow paths helped me wind through the brush. Shortly, the tree cover turned to thicker juniper and the grasses gave away to bare soils and rock. And it got steep, too. The actual climb up the mesa is short and quick. I picked my own way up the steepening hillside, periodically battling low brush, until I reached the caprock at the mesa's rim. Finding a place to gain the rim was a bit challenging, as the caprock was easily 6-8 feet high all around. I found a brushy cleft area with some big blocks that made it relatively easy for me to scale the caprock. Once on top, it was a simple stroll toward the obvious rise to the highpoint. I found what appeared to be an old cairn, but the rocks had been spread apart. It had taken me about 45 minutes to reach the top from my truck. I stayed just long enough to snap a photo or two, then started down. I found a better place to descend the caprock, then re-entered the tree cover down low as I made my way to the main road. I took another photo of the mesa as I hiked out, getting back to my truck about 8:30 a.m., a total of just about 90 minutes of hiking with about 3 miles round trip, and a gross elevation change of about 410 feet, including the 60 feet I dropped and regained twice.
The only downer was that somewhere along the line I lost my good sunglasses. They must have dropped from me on one of my many unexpected butt-landings while descending the rubbly slope (I had them hanging in my shirt collar). No one bothered me, and I saw no one, although I can't vouch 100% that this peak has reasonable public access. But I did get the impression the top has been visited before. From here, I drove east along FM-1770 to FM-382 and FM-153 to my next objective in Coleman County.
The Coleman County highpoint is one of three contending "hills" reaching 2,250+ feet elevation, all spaced about one mile apart. The center hill is marked by a USGS benchmark "McCord". It may be the highest point. Sighting between these hills is not possible due to the trees and brush that block line of sight views, so I planned on visiting all three.
I accessed these highpoint hills off of state route TX-153 to dirt county road 456, heading north about 2 miles to a cattle grate spanning the road. I crossed the grate and parked off the road near a gate; the easternmost highpoint hill was visible beyond the gate, no more than a quarter-mile distant. There wasn't much out here: no homes, nothing that looked active. The fence and gate were not posted explicitly (although I know that doesn't mean it's not really posted). The place had a run-down, derelict feel. I felt safe, so I hopped the gate and made short work of the first hill, reasing it in just a couple of minutes.
From the first hill, I hiked by sight to the middle hill, with the McCord benchmark on it. I found the top and the benchmark and a lot of cairns for some reason: big stacks of rocks everywhere. Interesting. There were more trees in this area. The westernmost area was maybe a third of a mile west across a fence line (suggesting another property). There's a water tank on this hilltop. I didn't dawdle: once I tagged what I thought were the highpoints I retraced my steps back to my truck. The whole hike took maybe an hour and covered a couple of miles. I never saw a soul.
A couple years later some couple in Dallas scolded me for being on "their" property, apparently reading about my trip on this website. In 2008 I was in correspondence with Lee Rosenbaum, a surveyor from the Abilene area who has taken an interest in the county highpoints of Texas. He reported to me that the property is being developed. Well, further detective work by Mr. Rosenbaum showed that the presumed landowners were in error: I never crossed their property, but skirted north of it. He has supplied me with some aerial images showing the property lines of the landowners (see left sidebar). I have included my rough track I followed. There would have been no reason for me to go south onto these people's land, and I didn't, apparently. Whose land I was actually on, I have no clue. In 2003, the land was fallow and unused, and the fencing partially in disrepair.
From Coleman County I drove east a ways through Brownwood on US-84, then north up US-183 toward the Brown County highpoints, located on Hog Mountain near the community of May. Five areas along the ridge comprise Brown county's highpoint, although three can be pretty much deleted from contention. But the remaining two are on separate private properties and I didn't feel like wasting time to bother, especially since one looked like it was way back on some pretty overgrown land, so I let these go and popped into neighboring Comanche County to gain its highpoint, a hill/mesa part of these same Hog Mountains. There are actually three areas in Comanche county that reach 1,920 feet: one with a large area and a spot elevation of 1,929 feet, and two tiny ones that almost certainly don't get that high. Besides, Bob Martin had been here in the few days before me, had sighted these smaller areas with his level from atop the big area, and showed they were lower.
The easiest access is via FM-1689, then local county roads 175 and 177 south and west to a bend in the road immediately north of the highpoint. It looked to be a short hike up and an overall easy highpoint. However, this one proved to be by far the brushiest, viniest, stickeriest hike of any I did on this trip. I parked at the fence along the road, and started up the immediately steep and loose slope, coming upon an east-west fence fairly quickly. I found a breach in this fence and wriggled through it. So far, so good... sort of. I had slipped a few times on the rubbly slopes on the way up, and this was already kind of a nasty hike. But it got worse, fast. There was no clear way to gain the final 40 feet to the mesa top without barrelling directly into a mish-mash of low, dense vines and foliage. I simply bashed through waist-high brush, in shorts, encountering sticker vines, and cutting up my legs pretty bad in the process. When will I ever learn? But I was successful in gaining the top. Mercifully the brush wasn't as bad on top, and I was able to hike south about 500 feet in intermittently open areas, with game trails helping in the brushy areas. I didn't find anything that looked human-made to mark the top, although I did find a bare rock area with what seemed to be a two-rock cairn, but this may be just accidental, too. In any case, I spent about 20 minutes walking the top, trying to sense the highpoint and the possible location of the 1,929-ft spot elevation. After a while I waved my hands and declared Comanche good, and started back ... the only route I knew ... through the damn vines again. Yup, I got scratched some more. I made the
quick hike back to my truck, and tried to soothe my cuts with water. I cleaned up as best I could and drove into Rising Star, a community not far away, where I used a gas-station bathroom to clean my cuts better. The whole trip was about a mile with about 230 feet of gain in less than an hour.
The community of Sabanno is located along FM-569, just south of its intersection with TX-206. The Sabana Creek runs through the areas, with its "highlands", so to speak, a series of small hills running along the Eastland-Callahan County line. The map shows no name for these hills, so I have creatively dubbed them the Sabana Hills. They actually extend more inside Callahan county, reaching up to around 2,100 feet. Just a few pointy hillocks lie on the Eastland County side. Three separate hills reach elevations of 1,973 ft, 1,975 ft and 1,976 ft. Luckily, a larger hill mostly in Callahan county includes a single 1,980-ft contour extending into Eastland county. Otherwise, I'd be obliged to scale all these other hills to ensure I get Eastland's highpoint.
From the intersection of TX-206 and FM-569, I went north a tiny bit on FM-569 past the Sabanno Cemetary then turned left onto the first county dirt road I came to. I followed it as it bent north, then northwest, then north again, parking at a gate just north of spot elevation 1,798 marked on the map, right at a road shown trending northwest, also shown on the map. I suited up, put the usual "I am not a hunter" note in my truck window, and started in. This gate proved to be unique. Normally I go over them if they're sturdy, or squeeze through or under them if they're flimsy. This one was sturdy, but not directly attached to the fencing other than by two chains, and there was much growth and weeds where it was chained to the fence. So in this case, I laid on the ground, and lifted the gate up and over me to get in. There were no restrictive signs placed anywhere.
The hike follows the road. It's a hard-pack two-track that seems to see regular use. It unexpectedly junctions near a pond. I went left but it was clear pretty fast this was the wrong way, so I backtracked and resumed straight on the main road. It starts to gain a little bit and becomes heavily eroded. After about 0.5 mile it comes to a 3-way fork. The left-most fork is the correct route: it curves around the hill 1976 and then comes to a grassy saddle west of hill 1976 and east of the highpoint hill. The final hike up the 100 feet or so went fast, and I came up upon the flattish top amid the usual low cactus, various shrubs and some trees. I continued straight and passed through a small straight stand of trees into a cleared area with a north-south fence, presumably at the county line. I identified the highest area along the fence, and also any other seemingly highspots in this area, and called it good. The round trip covered about 2.5 miles, about 190 feet of gain and about 40 minutes. From here, I went north into an increasingly ominous storm to gain the Stephens County highpoint.
The Stephens county highpoints lie in two distinct areas in the southern portion of the county. Four flattish areas are located along FM-1852 about one mile north of the Eastland-Stephens county line, at County Road 123. A fifth area is about 4 air-miles west, on Gunsight Mountain, on a portion that juts into Stephens County. I came to these areas after just completing Eastland County. It was about 1 p.m. in humid, mostly sunny weather, but a big storm was brewing to my north.
Some work has already been done regarding narrowing the possibilities for this county's highest point. John Garner, a previous visitor, has used his laser-equipped surveying gear to show that the spot elevations of 1,628 feet in the largest of the four east areas are superceded slightly by lands that reach about a foot higher, within that immediate region. Since the contours are spaced in 10-foot intervals, a 1,629-foot reading places much weight on that point (or points) being the highest point. Bob Martin, my venerable Texas hiking partner, had been here in the week previous and had sighted with his level to conclude the smaller areas can be ignored. I, of course, was the beneficary of all this. However, the western area on Gunsight has a very good chance of possibly equalling, if not exceeding, the 1,629-foot mark, as it is a good little hill with good definition, and intrapolating into the highest contour at least suggests that it is a good contender. So, in my mind, to count Stephens as good, I'd need to visit the western area and just the largest of the four eastern areas.
I came to the western area first, driving north on Eastland CR-331 off of TX-112 (which aparently is a new designation as my map had it as TX-69). At the county line, the dirt road becomes Stephens CR-154. I followed it about another mile until it curled west, and parked in a pullout north of some oil storage tanks. I hopped the fence (no restrictive signs) and followed the road south and west toward the brushy hillside. Ugh... more bushwhacking. I started directly up the hillside, which wasn't too bad, but still slow going. I breached an old fence about half-way up, and came out to the top after about 20 minutes from my truck. The top was more open, and I walked north and south along this noticeable hump, stepping on anything that looked promising. Satisfied, I descended pretty much the same way, and was back to my truck after about 40 minutes. The big storm to my north was now almost right over me, and I had some sprinkles. I didn't waste time driving out back to pavement.
As for the large eastern area, I parked at the junction of FM-1852 and CR-123, where one 1,628-foot spot elevation exists, and made a very brief walk within this flat area. Frankly, the storm was spooking me. I even sat in my truck and watched it for about 10 minutes to see what it would do. Once cloud had a prow-shaped protrusion coming from underneath the main cloud ... a precursor to a twister? Sufficiently impressed, I drove south a little bit to Ranger, and had lunch, waiting out the storm a bit. Then it was on to Palo Pinto County.
I found a Subway shop in Ranger where I sat for an hour, waiting out some ugly weather. It was about 3 p.m. and when I went back outside, the storm had moved farther to the east, which was good for me. My next objective was the Palo Pinto County highpoint, which wasn't too far in air-miles from Ranger. Continuing east on Interstate-20, I went north on TX-16 to the town of Strawn, then just under a mile north to the junction of FM-207. West (left) on FM-207 for 4.5 miles brought me to Hohhertz Road on my north (right). I went in on this road and it was evident the storm had dumped quite a bit of rain in the past hour. The road was very slick and muddy, with lots of standing water. I went north on this road about 3 miles, not entirely sure if I was going to get a chance to hike the little hills on the road's west side: too many residences, ranch complexes and other buildings. I went a little more north than I needed to, then doubled back and parked in a pullout near a set of three oil storage tanks marked as "Delta Oil & Gas - J. N. Stuart". I was lucky: there was a clearing from these tanks all the way up the hill, from which the highpoint would be an easy stroll on the hill/ridge top.
After changing into my boots, I hopped the sturdy fence (no restrictive signs) and made my way up this steep, muddy clearing, staying clear of numerous exposed oil pipelines from the many wells in the area. After about 15 minutes, I'd gained the 120 vertical feet and was now on the ridge top. This clearing was a blessing as otherwise it would have been another ordeal in the brush to gain the top, and I'd had enough of those already today! Once on the ridgetop I turned north and walked about 300 feet toward an obvious rise. I found the remnants of a north-south fence that at first I thought may be the county line (the highpoint straddles the Stephens-Palo Pinto line), but this fence clearly did not agree with the map. The rise was obvious and I achieved the rounded top after another ten minutes of strolling amid the open land. A building (storage shed?) to my northwest served as a good navigation item, agreeing with the map, and a GPS reading confirmed my position beyond all doubt. I paced the high area for a bit, then returned back to my truck, a total of about 1 mile round-trip hiking and about 40 minutes of fun.
The ground was quite muddy and my boots were encased in the heavy goop. I was parked in mud ... so I couldn't change into my sandals without placing my mud-laden boots in the cab of my truck. To make a long story short, I tied the boots together and hung them on my rear-view mirror as I drove out to the main highway. There I put them on again and walked on the asphalt to sand away the mud. For reference, the place where I parked to do my hike was 2.9 miles north on Hohhertz Road from FM-207. The name "Hohhertz Hills" is another of my own doing: the map doesn't have a name for these little hills, and I liked the name "Hohhertz".
While driving east on TX-16 and US-180 toward Mineral Wells and my next objective, Wise County, the big storm had now pretty much stalled over Weatherford and Mineral Wells, and it looked mean. In fact, I saw something very peculiar, like a dust cloud; then I turned on the radio and they were talking about the twisters that had been spawned in Weatherford and along Interstate-20 - exactly where I was looking! Did I see a tornado? I am not sure. I wasn't too concerned as I had sun above me and it was generaly sunny in the direction I was heading. But still, I may have witnessed my first tornado, albeit from about 20 miles away.
I did not have success in Wise County. I got there late in the day, parked, and as I was getting my stuff in order to hop a fence, a nice big shiny SUV comes rolling up to me. So I approached the driver. She was a knock-out! A drop-dead gorgeous Texas beauty with a pound of hairspray keeping her head all pretty. But she was not terribly impressed with my explanation of why I was there. Rather than upset her more, I decided to move on toward the city of Bowie, where there was a nice hearty meal and hotel room with my name on them.
The previous day had been very successful: I had knocked off six county highpoints, all of which required a fair bit of hiking and including some steep hilly-bushwhacky mesa hikes. As the day progressed the weather deteriorated and I spent the latter part of the day dodging a big thunderstorm that eventually spawned some tornados near Dallas. I eventually worked my way to the city of Bowie in Montague county, about an hour's drive north of Fort Worth. Although I had mostly clear skies above me, the entire region was under a tornado warning. I found a nice hotel called the Park's Inn, which advertises itself on big billboards along the main highway (US-287). After I showered, I went to the little restaurant adjoining this hotel but they had closed at 8 p.m. and were cleaning up (it was about 8:15). But they were kind enough to fix me up something for take-out. So, if you're in Bowie, stop by the restaurant for some good "home cooking". They were super-friendly.
That night the weather varied between calm and rain with thunder and lightning, and although the tornado warning was still in effect, I wasn't too scared - more curious than anything. I crashed around 10 p.m. then awoke about 2 a.m. to a huge thunderclap and heavy rain, accompanied by a low, loud rumble. In my tired state of mind, I immediately thought that rumbling was a twister tearing its way through Bowie! I jumped out of bed, looked outside and saw (to my relief) that it was just raining. The low rumble was a train passing not far away. For someone who only (maybe) saw his first twister the day before, I was simultaneously excited about the whole thing, and scared too. I wasn't the only one suckered into thinking there was a twister going on: another guy did the same thing as me: run outside to look, then realize it was just a stupid train. The next morning, I got on the road before 7 a.m., another long day ahead of me. The plan was to do all (hopefully) of the counties that run along the Texas-Oklahoma border, from Cooke in the east to Hardeman in the west. If I was successful, I'd have a complete line stretching along the Red River (the border), to Texarkana. So Cooke County was first on the docket.
I left the hotel in heavy rain and headed east along TX-59 about 20+ miles to the town of Saint Jo, where I went south briefly on US-82 before catching FM-2382 northeasterly about 4 miles, passing into Cooke county. The Cooke highpoint is a noticeable hump of land in a field on the west side of the highway, very near the county line. I parked along the road and walked into the field through an opening at a dirt-road entrance. The walk out to the highpoint was quick and straightforward but very muddy and generally miserable in the unrelenting rain. I hit the high area after about 10 minutes of brisk walking, and just returned right back to my truck, all the while getting soaked and collecting mud on my boots. Back out on the road I spent some time trying to kick the mud off before getting back into my truck, and headed west toward the Montague County highpoints. Cooke was easy and successful, and I had one finished already, and it was still early.
The Montague County highpoint areas are spread around over five areas, one easily reached alomngside a highway, and another four in a field to the north. However, the heavy rain and a big herd of cattle just standing (and sitting) in said field removed any motivation I had for finishing Montague County, so I proceeded west. By the way (as I learned), it's pronounced "Montaig".
From Montague County I scooted west into Clay County, following state route TX-59 into the community of Newport. I followed some local roads that had become very muddy in the rain. I needed 4-wheel drive to grind my way to a corner of section roads, and parked in a pull-out about three-quarters of a mile northeast of the highpoint area. The area is hilly, and the probable highpoint visible off to the southwest.
In the rain I hopped a fence (no signs), walked across a weedy pasture to another fence, hopped it, and hiked by sight to the highpoint hill, all this in about 25 minutes. It was muddy, cold, wet and unpleasant. The highpoint hill features an elongated ridge/summit, and I spent some time walking its breadth to ensure success. There are no homes nearby, but off in the distance I could see some buildings. A dog way off somewhere barked the whole time I was here. Once satisfied, I beelines back to my truck, soaked with muddy boots. I tried to dry them by putting them in the passenger footwell and blasting the heater on them.
From here I drove north about 4 miles to check out another area that reaches the 1,200-foot level. A house sits on this tiny area. From the road, sitting in my truck (which puts my head at about 6 feet above the ground), I could eye that the ground on which the house sat was nearly level with my head. Since I estimate I was at about 1,195 feet (according to the map), the likelihood of this little area reaching 1,205 feet is essentially zero, so I didn't bother, and got a move on to my next objective, the Young & Jack County pair on Rooters Mountain.
One saddle-shaped hill straddling the Jack and Yound County line conveniently gives each county its own unique highpoint. From Clay County I got myself to the small town of Jermyn, by which time the morning rain had moved on. All I had was gray skies and calm conditions. This was nice as I was growing weary of hiking in wet grasses and scrub.
From Jermyn, I followed highwat TX-114, then a long series of local roads: Shephard Lane, Oliver Lane, Burdick Road, Monument Road, Cox Mountain Road and finally, Rooters Mountain Road. Yes, have a map. This put me north of a ranch called "Bottles and Wheels" Ranch. A ranch home and some buildings were off to the left about 300 yards, while the actual hill was about 0.75 mile from the road.
I hopped the gate and walked to the ranch home, seeking permission to hike onto the hill. A pretty horse grazed in a pasture, but as I approached the home, I noted no vehicles, no activity, and the home itself was slightly run-down. This may be someone's weekend getaway. The horse may get lonely. I knocked but no one was home. So I continued back onto the road and hiked up to the saddle on Rooters Mountain.
I went east along the spine of the small hill into Jack County first, and hit the little summit after about 10 minutes of walking. The top is gently rounded and provides pretty views of the surrounding countryside. I thenm walked back to the saddle and west into Young County to an old derelict lookout tower, which I did not dare climb. Like Jack County, the top here is gently rounded and in places provides nice views. Not a bad little highpoint. I liked this one.
Once finished, I returned to my truck and was on my way west some more. By now I was in the Wichita Falls area of the state.
After a morning of mostly rainy weather and three short hikes totalling about three miles (and four highpoints to show for it), I was now in "easy" country. Archer County and nearby Wichita County, whose highpoints are reachable directly by road. It would be nice to be lazy for a couple hours, I thought.
I drove to the town of Megargel, then followed Wilhelm Road to Megargel Lake Road. The Archer County highpoint is a hump directly on this latter road, about a mile east of Wilhelm. A carved stone sitting beside the road even mentions this being the county highpoint. I left my truck running in neutral (and REO Speedwagon on the radio) while I got out to pace the immediate area. I probably just spent a minute or two here.
From Archer County I headed north through some pretty remote hinterlands from Megargel toward the town of Electra, about 50 miles north. This was mostly scraggly ranch and oil lands, and not much color. The Wichita County highpoint is a single area in an oil field south of the town of Electra about 25 miles west of Wichita Falls. I followed TX-25 north to get near Electra, then drove to its junction with FM-1811 just south of town. The highpoint is a half-mile south from here. I backtracked a half-mile and found the road into the oil field. This road was not gated nor posted, and I drove it about a half-mile west up to a rise near a storage container. This was the highpoint.
The land here has been altered: the tanks sit on large flattened plots of land with berms. I dutifully stepped here and there, knowing full well these were man-made. I also briefly walked out into a small, seemingly "natural" spot of land just south of the road, to consider the county done. Well, that was easy. Now about 1 p.m., and with six counties done today, I headed west about 30 miles along US-287 to Vernon, where I took a lunch break at a McDonalds. The weather was also starting to kick up a bit, but nothing like I'd had this morning or yesterday. Nevertheless, I kept my eye out for anything interesting.
From Vernon I headed west until I passed into Hardeman county. Just west of the Wilbarger-Hardeman county line (and about 2 miles east of the town of Chillicothe), I turned south onto FM-925 and followed it south. At the second bend, less than 3 miles from US-287, I turned right (west) onto a dirt road. I drove in just a few hundred feet and parked underneath a power line.
The hike is short, as the highpoints (2 small areas) are just a few hundred feet back behind brush and who-knows-what. I immediately entered the low brush, using game paths to wend through it, then just as quickly I came into a small field. The first highpoint area was to the right and was marked by a hunter's stand. There is a dirt road that leads over this area. I could not tell whether the small hill on which the stand sat was natural, but I hiked to it anyway. Another, more "natural" area, was nearby off the road a tiny bit.
The second distinct area was easily reached by hiking back into the field, then up a small thicket of dog-hair trees with mercifully light underbrush, but lots of leaves. Some humps of land mark the top, but the trees prohibit comparing to the other area. If the hunter's stand in the first area sits on a natural hill, then that point is almost certainly the highpoint. Otherwise the two areas are pretty close. There were no gates, fences nor restrictive signs. There seems to be plans for the construction of a dairy in the field north of the highpoints in the future, or so said a sign in the area.
Hardeman County was important to me: it was the last county I needed to attach my eastern Texas county glob (30 counties or so) to my main glob (pretty much from the Pacific Ocean to central Texas). If I was successful, I'd have a complete continuous run of counties from the Pacific to the Arkansas border. The day had started back in Cooke county in bad, rainy weather, then it got better and drier, but now there was some iffy-looking storm clouds kicking up in the Quanah-Childress area. I hoped they'd remain calm to allow me to do my thing.
Hardeman county has 10 areas reaching 1,850 feet, with two having spot elevations of 1,852 feet. The ten areas of Hardeman county are located along a county road near the Hardeman-Childress county line. If coming in from Childress, take FM-268 east about 14 miles to the Hardeman county line sign, then turn north onto Hines Road (dirt). If coming in from Quanah (which is what I did), drive west on US-287 to FM-268, which goes north then west to Hines Road.
Eight areas are congregated along a ranch road heading west 2.6 miles north along Hines Road, at spot elevation 1,848. The two large areas along this road should be paced a little bit; in both instances I felt that higher areas were on the north side, but I hiked both sides just in case. A small area on the road between the two larger areas is clearly not as high. About 0.35 mile in, the road forks near a gravel pit, and the remaining five areas are found along or beside the road. The tiny areas are clearly out of contention. The gravel pit has spawned some man-made piles which I visited as well. I found the gate at this road open, but a hanging lock suggested that it probably is closed most of the time. In questionable weather, I took advantage of the open gate (and lack of restrictive signs) and drove in to expedite my time. The walk from Hines Road would have been no more than a mile round trip. The land here is scrubby mesquite and low grasses and cactus.
The remaining two areas, both of which contain an 1,852-ft spot elevation, are in a field to the northeast. I went north on Hines to Lindsey Road, then right a mile to an unmarked, unposted two-track road that goes into a field and comes to a gate. I parked here but noted the very soft sand.
The first 18,52-foot area was reached quickly, a small hump of land with native trees and brush on it, surrounded by a tilled field. The other 1,852-foot region was another 0.4 mile southwest. I came to a fence-line which helped me judge the rise and fall of the land. Parts on either side of this fence looked equally high so I checked out both sides. I hustled back to my truck. It was near 4 p.m. and the sun was getting kind of low. While driving the little two-track road, I inadvertantly got off the road and sunk about 8 inches into the soft sand. I needed 4-wheel drive to get unstuck.
I was basically done with my day's goal. I decided to get some miles put in toward Abilene, but noted there was one more county highpoint along the way that I could do in the dark if need be.
From Hardeman County, I had a long 120-mile drive south, passing through Childress, Paducah, Guthrie and Aspermont, finally entering Fisher County in the dusk. I got myself into the town of Roby, near the six spread-out areas that hold the Fisher County highpoint. One has a Benchmark "Pyron" at 2,405 feet, and another area hosts a radio tower and is marked as 2,402 feet. The four other areas, for various reasons, are unlikely to supercede 2,405 feet.
The northeasternmost area is small, rounded and topped with a 2,402 spot elevation. A second area north of the highway and less than a mile west breaches the 2,400-ft level. Inspection and a very short hike convinced me neither of these two areas is likely to be the highpoint. The large area to the south of these two areas has a radio tower on it, and I drove the dirt county roads to this area. The corner of two roads is listed at 2,402 feet, and I walked to the radio tower complex, which entailed maybe 1-2 feet or more rise. It was about 6:30 pm in mostly dark conditions so I didn't spend a whole lot of time sighting. Back out to the main highway, I went west about another mile to the largest area, the one with the Pyron benchmark. A residence is to the north, while some high areas are on the south side of the road. I found a cement pillar (witness post?) and made some short walks. This area is probably the highest point.
In increasing darkness I drove south along dirt roads to the remaining two areas, passing the townsite along the way. Pyron isn't a town these days as it is just a few spread-out homes and farms, but there was a large, burnt-out building in the middle of all this, which might have been something interesting in the old days. Maybe it was just in disrepair. In the dark it was hard to tell. For the two southern areas, the visits were short, and by my instincts and inspection, they almost certainly do not contain the highpoint. They are flat fields with years of plowing likely having reduced any high areas to nothing. By this time it was totally dark. Nine counties today. I drove some more to Colorado City along Interstate-20, took a cheap hotel.
The previous day I had nabbed nine county highpoints along the Oklahoma border, and covered over 650 miles of driving. I was essentially done with this trip, but I had a few county highpoints I wanted to take care of before I started the 900-mile drive back to my home in Phoenix. I took a hotel in Colorado City, located along Interstate-20, and slept in a little bit for the first time in five days. It felt great! I didn't get on the road until about 8 a.m. On the docket today was just one county: Mitchell county's highpoint, an attractive mesa called Stepp Mountain located in its extreme southeast corner, about 25 miles southeast of Colorado City.
Stepp Mountain is just one part of an extensive series of mesas that stretch out in this part of Texas. Most of this mesa "range" is inside neighboring Nolan county, and a lot south in Coke county. It is visible from about 15 miles away, near a small town called Silver. I took TX-208 out of Colorado City to the Coke county line, and then immediately turned north onto a dirt road, directly across the way from where FM-1672 junctions and starts going south. I followed this road north about 1.2 miles, then east about a mile, going slow and matching side roads to roads on the map until I came to a road heading south, just inside Nolan county. This all was within the McCabe Oil Field, and this area was nothing but oil pumps, oil storage stations, and one grim little residence along the "main" dirt road. Anyway, at the above-mentioned road heading south, marked "Shenandoah Petroleum Corporation, Walker", I opened up the gate (no restrictive signs, no locks). It was one of those wretched wire-stick crumple gates that fall into a heap when opened, and difficult to close. But I managed it fine, drove south a tiny bit, then west a tinier bit to an oil pump clearing. This was great! My truck was way out of sight from the main road, and I was basically right up on the northern slopes of this mesa.
While driving in there seemed to be no good way up this mesa. It's heavily forested with juniper and brush, and steep, and ringed by a very large caprock and in some places, genuine cliffs. I made my way up the slopes, crawling on my hands and knees more than once to get through some heavy brush sections. Toward the top, it just got plain steep, with lots of rubbly limestone rocks. I took it slow, slipped more than once, and eventually reached the caprock, maybe 20 minutes of hiking and about 200 feet of gain; I could still see my truck. The caprock proved to be pretty imposing: it was taller than me easily, maybe 8-9 feet tall. I checked it out a little bit in each direction and found one broken section that I clambered up, doing some honest climbing using hands and all that... albeit just for this short section. This put me on the mesa top.
The mesa top was just as heavily forested as its slopes. I walked south, snaking my way through the trees, grass and cactus and stepping on any rise of land that looked like a contender for the highpoint. I also spied a 15-foot wooden "pole" off in the distance: a 4x4 wood lath held up by guy wiring. I walked to it, figuring it may be something. I picked apart some rocks and brushed away dirt and found the benchmark "Stapp" (not a misprint), elevation 2,574 feet. Now, I'm not convinced this is the highpoint, as many areas along the hike seemed to be as high (maybe...). In any case, it was a tangible thing to claim, a nice hike and forced me to walk pretty much the length of the mesa. I started back, descended the caprock and somehow found my way back to my truck - the whole hike taking about an hour. All in all, very nice!
From here I started the loooong drive back home, done with Texas for this trip. I stopped at a Dairy Queen in Sterling City, which proved to be a waste of time, and drove west in very windy, dusty weather as well as increasing storminess. I spent some time in Sierra Blanca in Hudspeth county, trying to get more info on Eagle Peak, which has been vexing me for three years now. The weather was now just really bad: 30 mph winds, and cold. I got what I was after and managed to get as far as Lordsburg NM before getting a hotel for the night. I was back home by noon the next day.
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(c) 2003, 2011 Scott Surgent. For entertainment purposes only. This report is not meant to replace maps, compass, gps and other common sense hiking/navigation items. Neither I nor the webhost can be held responsible for unfortunate situations that may arise based on these trip reports. Conditions (physical and legal) change over time! Some of these hikes are major mountaineering or backpacking endeavors that require skill, proper gear, proper fitness and general experience. |