Sheridan County High Point Trip Report

Date: September 3, 2001
Author: Dave Covill

We got up and headed up into the north end of the Big Horn range to Sheridan's unnamed 11,020+ foot ridge line. Some National Forest workers at the old Twin Lakes Trailhead said the trailhead was rerouted 2 miles west, and sure enough, we went back, and there was a trailhead maybe 1-2 years old there, called Coney Creek TH. New trail is straighter, less gain, slightly longer.

You reach Stull lakes by going 2 miles straight south, then turn west and go 2 miles to Coney Lake, where the trail ends. We set a good pace and continued on to bushwhack up southwest to get above the trees, then followed the basin up to the saddle north of the HP. We then went straight up to the ridge crest, and were faced with a down-climb of 10 feet to get to the right boulder. We had to go around for 20 minutes to get there. Here is where it got interesting.

The cohp is a large boulder, perhaps 15 feet cubed, perched precariously on other boulders/bedrock. Once you do some class 2+ scrambling to get around to the base of it, including actually creeping under it's overhanging north edge, you see that the boulder is actually split cleanly down the middle. The north side is approximately 5 feet higher than the south. We used the jam crack between the two, which is about 6 inches at the back edge, 2 feet at the front , to go up the approximately 8 feet to the lower half. Then we stood up and leaned across the crack and slap the high spot of the higher half. I could have gotten up onto it, but it's only about 4 feet square, with a 5-foot jump down to a 6-foot square top of the lower boulder, with about 50-100 feet of exposure on 3 sides, and 15 feet on the side we came up (but you would bounce much further any way you went). I chose to call it good.

Bob Packard had placed a nice register at the base of the cleft, with nothing from Dave Olson. I know of no other people to have ventured here. No one else had signed in to Packards register since 1997. Took us 5 hours to get on top, about 2 1/2 to get out. This is a fantastic cohp. No one goes here, it's neat, great view, challenging, yet a stout-hearted lad can do it given reasonable guidance. Jerry was at his limits, but did it, and I was gratified to have been there to see it. He's about 60, by the way.