Okay, so I’d pretty much decided that I didn’t want to do a trip report for my recent trip to the highpoints of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma. I mean, who really reads these things anyway … unless, of course, they are truly exceptional. And what is exceptional about hitting a handful of state highpoints in our nation’s mid-section? Well, nothing. But then, in the last couple of days, I’ve started putting together a scrapbook of the four trips I’ve taken with my father over the last two years and a trip report for our most recent adventure was notably absent. So here I am writing down my thoughts about a trip that will certainly not rank among the great travel stories of the year, but was very memorable on a personal level. Basically, I’m writing this for me and my Dad. Read along if you like.
The trip started on May 17th with an evening flight to Bismarck, North Dakota which put us in good position to attempt the 3,506-foot White Butte the following day. As we began driving through the Peace Garden State on May 18th, it quickly became apparent to us that we were a long way from New York. Little traffic, few houses or people and long stretches with none of the above. It wasn’t a surprise to learn that the entire state of North Dakota boasts a smaller population than the Albany area of Albany where we live. Over the course of the next five days, wide-open spaces would become the norm and it was very easy to envision what this land must have been like 150 years ago with buffalo grazing and roaming through this area of the Great Plains. We encountered many domestic buffalo within their fences as well as a few free-roaming bison in Custer State Park in South Dakota. Other than that, it was an endless land of rolling hills, buttes and empty space in this region dominated by free-range cattle.
It took about two hours for us to make our way from Bismarck to the southwest corner of the state, where White Butte’s summit rises several hundred feet from its base to the top of an interesting geologic formation rich with whitened clay. The hike itself was less than two miles in length from the point where we had parked our rental car, but it had an interesting feel on this warm and gusty day. Rattlesnakes are a concern in this area and both my father and I chose to wear the canvas snake leggings that we had purchased for the trip. On this day, however, no rattlers were to be seen. We were also equipped with hiking poles and the vibration caused by the poles probably gave the rattlesnakes plenty of advance warning and time to go about their business. The view from the top was great – full of unique formations that included a crater type area that may have well once been home to a Sioux camp (speculative perhaps, but Indian burial grounds have reportedly been found in the area of White Butte). In any event, our visit lasted about two hours before we made our way back to the car and started heading south towards the Black Hills of South Dakota.
We rolled into the Rapid City area of South Dakota in the late afternoon and had time to pay a short visit to Mount Rushmore, located only about 10 miles from South Dakota highpoint, Harney Peak. Had I been traveling by myself, I doubt I would have taken the time to visit Rushmore, but my father was enthused about seeing this National Monument and it turned out to be far more impressive in person than I had imagined. We’ve all seen the postcards and pictures in textbooks, but photos certainly don’t do justice to this rather impressive work of man. Say what you will about defacing a mountain to engrave the faces of Washington, Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt and Lincoln … it was just cool to see it in person. We also had the chance to walk the 3/4-mile long Presidential Trail, which winds its way under the profiles and offers a unique up-close view of the monument. After this, it was onto nearby Hill City, South Dakota for the evening with a planned hike of Harney Peak scheduled for first thing in the morning.
On May 19th, we were on the trail to Harney Peak by about 8:30 AM. Rather than the standard Sylvan Lake Trail, we decided to vary things up by taking the somewhat more scenic Little Devil’s Tower Trail approach (AKA Trail #4). This route starts only about 1,000 feet lower than the 7,242-foot summit of Harney, but gives back a couple hundred feet in the mid-section of the six-mile round trip. Total elevation gain for the entire hike is about 1,600 feet with fairly gentle grades. We lucked out insofar as the weather was perfect for this hike … which turned out to be one of my favorite highpoints to date. The Black Hills are just great and I’d long been wanting to visit this area of the country. The spires and pine forest of the range provides a nice contrast to the Adirondacks, Catskills and White Mountains of the Northeast, where I have most of my experience. It would definitely be nice to return to this area one day to explore these hills more thoroughly.
But our two days in the Dakotas were at an end as we headed for the not-so-spectacular highpoints of Nebraska and Kansas on May 20th. Before we left South Dakota, however, a trip through Custer State Park gave us an opportunity to snap a few shots of grazing buffalo.
Panorama Point and Mount Sunflower … not much to say there. We could have driven right up to the “summits” of these state highpoints, but chose to park about a mile and a half from each highpoint and walk the rest of the way just to give ourselves an opportunity to stretch our legs. We hit 5,424-foot Panorama Point first thing in the morning on the 20th and arrived at 4,039-foot Mount Sunflower mid-to-late afternoon.
Reaching both highpoints required a significant amount of time driving on dirt roads through the high plateau regions of the western parts of these states. I should also note that the climbing group known as Cops on Top had teams attempting to reach all 50 highpoints on May 20th as a way of memorializing fallen Police Officers. Though I’m not a member of this group, I did leave a printout from the “Officers Down” page regarding two members of my own agency who had been killed in the line of duty this year. I believe Cops on Top was turned around on Denali but succeeded on the other 49 state highpoints.
This left just 4,973-foot Black Mesa for our final day of hiking. Located on the far western panhandle of Oklahoma, Black Mesa feels like something straight out of an old west movie. Ninety degree temperatures and plenty of warnings about prairie rattlesnakes only added to the unique feel of the territory. Just to throw in a touch of local flavor, someone nearby was doing a little target practice in this area reputed to have once been an outlaw hideout. Fortunately for us, either this person wasn’t a very good shot or we weren’t the target! The hike itself was an 8.6-mile roundtrip with around 800 feet of elevation gain … most of which was attained in one short stretch in the mid-section of the hike. The mesa itself is the result of an ancient lava flow and apparently is one of the largest mesas in the world at some 40 miles long. The summit obelisk seemed to be plunked in the middle of a large flat area and wasn’t really any higher than anything around it. The nicely-done marker announced we were just 1,299 feet from New Mexico and 4.7 miles from Colorado.
Given the amount of planning that goes into these trips, it’s always a little sad to see them end. But this really was one of the most enjoyable highpointing trips I’ve done so far. It definitely felt like we got away from it all and took a step back in time. This brought me up to 36 total highpoints and gave my Dad 16. But whatever bad feelings I may have had about this this trip ending, they were filed away when I spotted Wheeler Peak as we drove through New Mexico to Albuquerque of our flight home on May 22nd. Planning for the next trip has now begun!
Mark’s Mountain Travels 