Pittsburg County Highpoint Trip Report

Date: May 26, 2003
Author: David Olson

Start in the town of Clayton, OK. Start on 3rd street and go north, then continue on Flag Pole Road. Soon I was up on the mountain, headed to radio towers. At the top of the last hill, 0.3 mile before the radio towers, I found a fork in the road with open gates on both forks. I took the right fork. At about 1.7 miles I got to another fork, with a sign saying "Coopers". I took the left fork. A little farther I met Mr. Cooper on his ATV, trailed by 4 small hound dogs. He was kind enough to explain the road grid to me. At this point I engaged 4WD.

At the bottom of the hill, after crossing Crumb Creek once, I turned right at another fork. I crossed two more creeks; then turned right again and climbed back up to the ridge.

At the top I encountered a herd of Texas Longhorn cattle and another fork. I turned left. I crossed one more creek. Then I came to a spot that I considered too muddy to risk, and stopped.

I figured I had a mile of hiking. After pacing it I bet it is more like 1.4 miles. The first 0.4 mile would have been pretty rough. Soon afterwards it became a forest lane, grass all the way across - no tracks. I spotted the turn off to the left in section 34, another forest track, same quality. 405 paces later I came to a pair of lavender ribbons hanging from trees, and nailed on a tree south of the track I saw a yellow locator card verifying the county line's location. Visit rocks here, and go 50 feet farther west for some big rocks that also could be the HP.

My usual pace is left-right-left-right and twice as long as what most people call a pace. I forget whether I translated "405" into the usual count.