Marquette County High Point Trip Report
Date: October 17, 2001
Author: Michael Schwartz
Richard Carey's approach directions and his and Roy Schweiker's hike reports were very useful.
At the trailhead, the North Country Trail is marked on a forest service map, and I carefully copied the route
onto my topo. This was useful only in determining general direction of travel. The terrain is too jumbled to
follow the route closely on the topo. The trail is blazed west of the trailhead, but is not blazed to the east,
presumably because of the wilderness designation of the land you hike through. It is easy to follow for the
first half mile or so, but becomes very faint, as reported by Richard and Roy, and will be lost several times
during the hike. I did a lot of heel scuffing along the way to mark my passage, and this was very reassuring
when I would lose the trail and have to backtrack. The rock clearing before the "S" bend is the last useable
landmark, and still a long way from the highpoint. I lost the trail completely at the last knob before the
highpoint knob, but at that point the highpoint is dead ahead and obvious. I scrambled up its steep face,
but found no register or corner marker.
The ridge ran in the right direction and the bump to the east was in the right place, lending reassurance that
this was the correct knob, plus there is really is nothing else of comparable size anywhere in the area.
Looking at the terrain, if you walk about 1 1/2 hours in the generally right direction, you will reach the
highpoint ridge, as the rivers and swamps on either side of the North County Trail will force you to travel
toward the highpoint. Sounds lame, but it works. I left some pink surveyors ribbon in the valley between
the penultimate knob and the highpoint knob, but I'm sure they will be removed by the rangers if they spot them.
Leave plenty of daylight for this one.