Giles County Highpoint Trip Report

Bald Knob on Salt Pond Mtn

Date: April 2, 2004
Author: Roy Schweiker

Hotel closed until May with plenty of No Trespassing signs but the personnel office was open and they gave me permission to hike. The office Ron Tagliapietra refers to is actually the Wilderness Conservancy but there was a note on the door that they are moving so this is not a good reference. Basically, walk up the road to the back of the hotel and then take the drive to the left.

I had to scrape snow off the trailhead sign to read it, and missed the first part of the trail as blazes were snow-covered and I didn't expect the switchbacks to be so level. Found them on way down as uphill side of tree trunks were bare.

Several inches of snow in crevices at summit, stepped on several rocks in the thicket but didn't scrape off enough to find the BM. Nice line of cliffs from small radio tower to bench.

The Bear Cliff Trail enters the road near the switchback and leads 2.8 miles to "Biol Station" (presumably the research station on the USGS map) possibly offering a more challenging approach for prominence nuts.