Ahhhh .... the folly of it all!
So maybe it wasn't Rainier. And when you get right down to it, it wasn't even Greylock. More like Jerimoth Hill cubed. But even so, my August 4-6 trip to the lofty highpoints of the great states of Missouri, Iowa and Illinois provided an enjoyable escape.
Just a little preamble to set the stage. First of all, this would be the third consecutive highpointing trip that included my Dad as my partner. Secondly, the choice of dates for the trip revolved around the fact that Charles Mound (highpoint of Illinois) is on private property and can only be accessed four weekends per year. And lastly, no we didn't drive all the way there. Instead, we flew into St. Louis, rented a car and then proceeded to Taum Sauk, Missouri: Hawkeye Point, Iowa and finally Charles Mound, Illinois before continuing on to O'Hare for the return flight.
We arrived at the "trailhead" for Taum Sauk, Missouri around 4:30 PM on August 4 and quickly attained the 1,772 foot highpoint after following a paved trail for 2/10 of a mile. It truly is pretty country in the Ozarks and this peak reminded me a lot of Signal Hill, Arkansas, which I visited three months ago. Although we took the easy way up, there are actually some pretty good trails in the area including the Ozark Trail and the Mina Sauk Falls Trail. After taking a few summit photos, we decided to follow the Mina Sauk Falls Trail for a while. After about a mile we came to a really nice outlook where nearby hills spread out before our feet. It is definitely an area that one could spend a whole day exploring but we were on the mountain sampler program for this trip and knew we had to make Kansas City for our first night stopping point.
The next day, as we drove northward along I-29 on the western edge of Iowa, I was surprised in my first ever visit to the Hawkeye State that Iowa isn't quite as flat as I'd expected. Roughly paralleling the Missouri River and I-29 are the Loess Hills, which abruptly rise 100-200 feet above the surrounding topography. There were some houses atop these hills where it literally looked like you could step out your front door and fall 200 feet to the train tracks below. Supposedly, this is the route Lewis and Clark took during their famous expedition. We attained the 1,670 foot highpoint of Iowa, aptly named Hawkeye Point, around 1:30 PM and I was quite stunned to find a water tower on the property of the Sterler Farm with the words "Osceola Rural Water" written in bold letters. Could it be possible? Here I was halfway across the country standing on the edge of crop of soy beans at the end of a cattle trough on top of Iowa .... and the name of a NH 4000 foot peak was emblazoned in three foot high letters just yards away. I felt briefly as if I'd stumbled into a Dave Barry column. We spotted another hill about 3/4 mile distant that appeared to be about the same elevation so we walked along some dirt roads to get to it and verified that Hawkeye Point had this other hill (which turned out to be the site of a cemetery) beat by 5-10 feet.
After several hundred more miles of driving and a good night's sleep, we bagged 1,235 foot Charles Mound early this morning (around 6:30 AM). Very pretty country once again. We also met up with a couple of other early risers who were on their way back to Virginia after a western swing in which they bagged Gannett (WY) and Granite (MT) in addition to coming within about 700 vertical feet of the top of Rainier before being turned back by high winds. Very cool. The hike itself was about a 2 mile roundtrip along a gravel road featuring a 200 foot elevation gain.
So, that finishes the eastern half of the country for me (31 states) but I still have a big fat goose egg for western peaks. The drumbeat in my head gets louder by the day: "Go west, man rapidly approaching middle age, go west."
So maybe it wasn't Rainier. And when you get right down to it, it wasn't even Greylock. More like Jerimoth Hill cubed. But even so, my August 4-6 trip to the lofty highpoints of the great states of Missouri, Iowa and Illinois provided an enjoyable escape.
Just a little preamble to set the stage. First of all, this would be the third consecutive highpointing trip that included my Dad as my partner. Secondly, the choice of dates for the trip revolved around the fact that Charles Mound (highpoint of Illinois) is on private property and can only be accessed four weekends per year. And lastly, no we didn't drive all the way there. Instead, we flew into St. Louis, rented a car and then proceeded to Taum Sauk, Missouri: Hawkeye Point, Iowa and finally Charles Mound, Illinois before continuing on to O'Hare for the return flight.
We arrived at the "trailhead" for Taum Sauk, Missouri around 4:30 PM on August 4 and quickly attained the 1,772 foot highpoint after following a paved trail for 2/10 of a mile. It truly is pretty country in the Ozarks and this peak reminded me a lot of Signal Hill, Arkansas, which I visited three months ago. Although we took the easy way up, there are actually some pretty good trails in the area including the Ozark Trail and the Mina Sauk Falls Trail. After taking a few summit photos, we decided to follow the Mina Sauk Falls Trail for a while. After about a mile we came to a really nice outlook where nearby hills spread out before our feet. It is definitely an area that one could spend a whole day exploring but we were on the mountain sampler program for this trip and knew we had to make Kansas City for our first night stopping point.
The next day, as we drove northward along I-29 on the western edge of Iowa, I was surprised in my first ever visit to the Hawkeye State that Iowa isn't quite as flat as I'd expected. Roughly paralleling the Missouri River and I-29 are the Loess Hills, which abruptly rise 100-200 feet above the surrounding topography. There were some houses atop these hills where it literally looked like you could step out your front door and fall 200 feet to the train tracks below. Supposedly, this is the route Lewis and Clark took during their famous expedition. We attained the 1,670 foot highpoint of Iowa, aptly named Hawkeye Point, around 1:30 PM and I was quite stunned to find a water tower on the property of the Sterler Farm with the words "Osceola Rural Water" written in bold letters. Could it be possible? Here I was halfway across the country standing on the edge of crop of soy beans at the end of a cattle trough on top of Iowa .... and the name of a NH 4000 foot peak was emblazoned in three foot high letters just yards away. I felt briefly as if I'd stumbled into a Dave Barry column. We spotted another hill about 3/4 mile distant that appeared to be about the same elevation so we walked along some dirt roads to get to it and verified that Hawkeye Point had this other hill (which turned out to be the site of a cemetery) beat by 5-10 feet.
After several hundred more miles of driving and a good night's sleep, we bagged 1,235 foot Charles Mound early this morning (around 6:30 AM). Very pretty country once again. We also met up with a couple of other early risers who were on their way back to Virginia after a western swing in which they bagged Gannett (WY) and Granite (MT) in addition to coming within about 700 vertical feet of the top of Rainier before being turned back by high winds. Very cool. The hike itself was about a 2 mile roundtrip along a gravel road featuring a 200 foot elevation gain.
So, that finishes the eastern half of the country for me (31 states) but I still have a big fat goose egg for western peaks. The drumbeat in my head gets louder by the day: "Go west, man rapidly approaching middle age, go west."
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