Juniata County Highpoint Trip Report

Date: January 24, 2007
Author: Deuane Hoffman

Located on Shade Mountain, above the Licking Creek Valley. A long drive over snow covered forest roads finally brought us to the remains of the old fire tower. As indicated in a report from March 14, 2000 by Michael Schwartz, the highest ground seems to be just northeast of the tower area. We wandered around a bit taking the old woods road east along the ridge and then made a few measurements. At one point, a few hundred yards from the tower, my GPS was reading 2,333 feet this is very close to the 2,228 feet reported so I felt that we had done our job.

Drive to highpoint area up Spectacle Gap Road is fairly straightforward even for standard passenger vehicles. Allow some time for this highpoint as the drive from Mifflintown to the HP is just over 20 miles. The majority of it on narrow, twisting, dirt, forest roads.