Banner County High Point Trip Report
three areas (5,340+ ft)
Date: March 23, 2003
Authors: Dave Covill and Tim Worth
There is a large open northern area, and two close-together southern areas, 4 miles apart.
From Pine Bluffs on I-80 in Wyoming at the northeast border, get off at the western of 2 exits, in WY,
and proceed north for 100 feet, by a Subway/Conoco, turning west immediately onto WY CR 215, which curves
west around town for a half mile, then goes straight north 17 miles to Albin WY, a tiny hamlet set a half mile
west of the highway. This junction is 2.0 miles north of a slight jog in the road. You would take a left and
go west on CR 216 if you were going to Albin, but don't bother, nothing much there; instead go east on
what appears to be CR 229 and also may be CR 162, although it was not clearly marked. Go 2.0 miles east
to the state line, and the road gets to a T-junction. South is dirt on CR 1, north is paved on CR 1. Go north
for 1.0 mile to a rise where the highway cuts through a limestone cap rock. Park here, and check out the 2
areas on the east side of the paved road. The southern one extends a ways out from the road, perhaps 200
yards, and has a high spot maybe 200 feet from the road. The northern area is small, and its high ground is
only ~50 feet from the road, and maybe 400 feet north of the southern area. We judged the southern area to
be even to 2 feet higher from the northern area, and we judged the northern area to be 4-6 feet lower from
the southern area, so splitting the difference, the southern area seems to be 3 feet higher. We left a small
cairn at each. There didn't appear to be any access issues at these 2 points, and no fences were crossed.
From here, proceed 3.0 miles north to where the road turns to gravel.
Continue 1.0 mile north to CR 16, and go 0.4 mile east to a crest. Here, the ridge extends due south gently,
and you can walk on the east side of a fence, along a row of shrubs, a half mile to the high ground.
We didn't cross any fences at all. We hand-leveled southeast to another lobe of the contour,
but it appeared to be 4-7 feet lower than where we stood.
We drove a penny and a quarter into the highest post, and left a small cairn.
Contact the owners, Charlene & Lee Malm, who live 1/4 mile east on 16 in a farm house, for permission.
This cohp is pretty easy, and if you catch the owners in, you could do it in about 1.25 hours interstate to
interstate. In our opinion, there was no way to determine whether the southern areas were as high as the
northern area. All 3 seemed to be roughly 5,345 ±2 feet. The only decent cross reference point is the
5,350 foot areas just west of the southern two, but in Wyoming. The Banner areas looked to be a few feet
lower than that, hard to say.