Montour County Highpoint Trip Report
two areas on Montour Ridge (1,380+ ft)
Date: September 8, 2005
Author: Fred Lobdell
I followed Mike Schwartz's directions for this one, with mixed success.
After turning into the dirt road with the "State Game Lands 1" sign, I found the road
gated and had to park in an adjacent parking area. A sign informed me that the
road would be opened on September 17th but that didn't do me any good on
September 8th. So I had another half mile plus of hiking each way.
I started up the road, following Mike's report, as the road clearly crested and
started descending. Unfortunately, I was misled by Mike's "few minutes".
After bushwhacking to the ridge crest, then eastward along the crest, and not seeing
any towers, I finally concluded that I was on the small 1,260+ foot knob east of
the highest points on the ridge. So I exited this area through the grounds of a
new 6-figure house under construction, returned to the gray gravel road,
and retraced my steps.
This time I went a good deal further (Mike's "few" minutes being 15 or 20) until
I found his grassy road. I followed this until it came out at the towers.
I found the benchmark Mike mentioned and bushwhacked west from there, probably a
bit more than a half mile each way. Mike suggested that the ground dropped off
from point 1388 noticeably but that the western 1,380+ foot area was barely distinguishable.
My feeling is that it is the saddle between these two areas
that is barely noticeable and that when the ground starts dropping off to the
west is where it is descending from the western knob. It would be helpful to
take a GPS unit to this HP to resolve this.