Love County Highpoint Trip Report
Date: March 25, 2001
Author: David Olson
I drove to the west area, two miles north of the junctions OK 32 and OK 76,
hoping that the unimproved road would be open and could be driven. No such luck.
I drove to the quiet road-junction 1.1 miles east of the west HP area, parked,
and started hiking. The terrain is quite sandy.
Then I drove four miles north to the paved county road and headed east.
I parked at the road junction with the unimproved road that goes to the three areas,
11.4 miles east of OK highway 76. It is signed "Gordan Cemetery" and gated.
I hiked north and encountered cattle. One of the difficulties with this
hike was dealing with the cattle.
There are additional roads up there not shown on the map. The road one hikes in
on goes at 5 degrees azimuth, east of north, and drops off the mesa.
Just before the drop off, take the lesser turnoff going west of north, shown on the map.
I tended to follow the edge of the mesa, to stay away from the cattle.
Unfortunately I came upon a calf lying in the grass. The cattle headed towards
me and I headed away from the calf and into the brush, near where I could step
down a short cliff and further into the trees, standing straight and looking at them.
After a few moments they turned and headed west. I finished examining
this HP area. It is flat on top and I can't tell where its highest spot is.
I then headed west on a route straight off the mesa towards the other mesa and
its two HP areas, rather than follow the road and face the cattle. I followed a
"road" up to the north part of the west mesa, which promptly drops off the north
end of the mesa. There are barbed wire fences on both sides of the "road",
hence dividing the northwest HP area into three slices. I visited each slice.
It seemed highest near the north edge in the west slice.
Since there were more cattle on top of this mesa, I dropped west off the mesa,
hiked south, and then back up onto the mesa on the other side of the cattle.
My eyeball tells me that the southwest HP area is not as high as the northwest HP area.
After that I dropped south off the mesa and fought ravines to get back to my car.