Harrison County High Point Trip Report
Date: July 21, 2001
Author: Ken Oeser
Levi Foust's trip report mentions a knob in a field, with cows. We followed the topo (with compass) and
found the actual benchmark on a knob in the woods, where we figured the highpoint to be.
From Georgetown at Interstate 75, take Highway 62 east for about 7.25 miles and look for a left turn onto
Finnell Pike. This road is not marked and easy to miss right now due to construction of the highway. Go
north on Finnell Pike, go under the power line, then descend to the valley. A little over a mile from Highway
62, look for an old house with a trailer behind it in a grassy valley, then a black barn, then a house with 3
VW beetles in front and a farm road next to it. The next driveway on the right is the owner's, Paul
something. We stopped at the house with the VWs and talked with Kenneth Gregory. He told us where the
owner lived, and said that the benchmark (that a local told him he had seen) was on the land of another man,
Henry Price, but he didn't know where he lived. Mr. Gregory told us he didn't think Paul would mind us
hiking, so we drove over to a gate in front of the black barn, and followed a farm road up a small valley to a
ridge heading east. This road ends at a field at elevation 1020.
A side ridge heads north from here, but go across a short saddle east toward two oak trees at a fence, then
cross the fence and gain the knob on the wooded county line ridge. Turn left (use a compass; I started south
before I pulled out my compass and corrected) and hike northeast following faint deer trails, crossing the
summit of this knob, descend to a saddle, and hike uphill east to the summit of the highpoint knob. The
benchmark is on the summit to the left of the deer trail, set in a squared concrete plug. It is marked
'Leesburg.' From the fence line crossing this is all in woods, with no sign of cows, although there is a field
100 yards southwest of the fence crossing that heads down to the first valley with the house and trailer.
There is also a new subdivided area with lots for sale about 0.5 mile up Finnell Pike. We first followed this
gravel road to its end and drove up into a field for a view of the ridge and a possible route, but there were
too many trees to see any detail.