King George County Highpoint Trip Report

21 areas (220+ ft)

Date: November 5, 2004
Author: Fred Lobdell

We followed Ryan Bowles's generally excellent report for this one. Unfortunately, we missed one area due to not having a map. This report follows the numbering system adopted by Ryan and goes into detail only where there are changes in conditions or where we feel that clarification would be helpful.

Areas 1 to 4: No change. The owner at #1 was not home, the owner at #3 was, and had no problem with our activities.

Area 5: The field mentioned by Ryan is adjacent to a fenced yard around a house. We felt that the highest area wasnext to the fence but on the field side.

Area 6: This one is a bit confusing. We were told that the owner of the blue house, mentioned by Ryan, also owns the high ground behind it. We went up a dirt drive behind the next house east of the blue house and then bushwhacked to the highest ground. The recently-logged area mentioned by Ryan is now pretty well overgrown and both the bushwhacking and the visibility were not good. We continued on into a lower area and then climbed another high area, probably the 210-foot contour to the southwest of the high point.

From there we descended to the road and walked back to our vehicle, which we had left at the house south of the blue house. We now feel that the extra effort was wasted, as the first high ground we were at was in all likelihood the true HP. A GPS unit here would be helpful.

Area 7: No one was home at either house.

Area 8: There is a logging road going into the area, and the ground has been disturbed. We stood on all the likely candidates.

Areas 9 & 10: We saw no one at either the church or the house just north of it. The highest ground is a berm on the house side of the fence separating the church's property from that of the house but the berm is obviously artificial, having been pushed up when the church parking lot was leveled and paved. We found the witness post for BM "Cash" on the berm at about the highest point but were unable to locate the bench mark itself.

Area 11: We followed Ryan's directions up to the point where they no longer made sense but couldn't figure out where we went wrong. We parked at the end of the first left curve after passing Potomac Church and found, on the left (east) side of Comorn Road, a paved side road with a chain across it. We walked up the road, finding no slightly overgrown dirt driveway. There was a new house near the point at which the pavement turned to gravel and in the left rear of that house's yard was a badly overgrown track. We followed that a few hundred feet to some high ground but saw no evidence of a "very abandoned" house. We were stymied. It turns out that, after looking at maps after our return home, the high area is on the west side of Comorn Road, about due west from the middle of the left curve. We did see an old side road on that side but it didn't appear to be paved.

So we have to re-visit this area in order to be able claim this county.

Area 12: No change.

Area 13: We did this one from Olde Logging Road, near its intersection with Comorn Road. It was an easy walk up a grassy slope to the high ground, which we felt was higher than the previous area.

Areas 14 to 17: Ryan's directions are still good for these. In area 16, the woods on the south side of Winston Road seemed to us to be definitely lower than the areas nearer the church.

Area 18: The T intersection mentioned by Ryan is where Comorn Road goes left (east) and Stanley Road goes right (west). Rokeby Lane is a short distance further west and has no high points along it. We felt the high ground was in the front yard at 7104 Stanley Road, rather than at 7130.

Area 19: 9451 Comorn Road is the second house east of the T intersection mentioned above, on the north side of the road.

Area 20: No change.

Area 21: We followed Ryan's directions. At the high ground we came across an old woods road, which we followed generally north back to VA 3, where there is a chain across it. This is a bit east of the intersection of Stanley Road with VA 3 and could provide alternate access, although the bushwhack was not bad either.