Highpoint: Eagle Mountain
State: Minnesota
Height: 2301 ft.
Highpoint #: 26
Date: 5/17/2003 (just barely)
Trails: Eagle Mountain Trail
Distance: About 7 miles roundtrip.
Vertical Gain: 600 feet
Time Taken: 5 hours
Weather: clear starry night, chilly, 40’s-50's
Group: JO, BC, Jay and Rick
Comments: We arrived at the trailhead for Eagle Mountain at about 1 a.m.
and started resting for a morning hike. At about 2 o'clock, we were all
still awake and decided that we would do the hike now instead of waiting till
the morning. We didn't know if night hiking was allowed here, but figured
that there was no one around to stop us, and we probably wouldn't get in
trouble if we were caught, anyhow. We packed up warm and left the
trailhead at 2:30 a.m. with headlamps on. This was a beautiful
hike. Since it was the middle of a cold night, the bugs were not a
problem at all. We hiked slowly since we were unfamiliar with the trail,
and we could only see as far as our headlamps. The lakes and streams were
shining from the starlight (my god, the stars) and we reached the summit right
at dawn, about 5:30 a.m. There was a small flag that had been placed on
the highpoint, but it had been shredded and torn from the elements, and since
we were feeling patriotic and didn't think that was how a flag should meet its
end, we folded it up and gave it a proper burning. It was a nice way to
start the morning and we took our time getting back to the truck, getting there
at about 8:00. We had a big day ahead, and we hit the road.
Left: BC on the summit of Eagle Mountain as dawn is slowly approaching. Right: Just before sunrise on one of the countless gorgeous lakes in the vicinity of Eagle Mountain.
Our itinerary for Saturday, May 17 were to drive from Eagle Mountain to Timm's Hill in central Wisconsin, then drive all the way down to Dubuque, IA to find a hotel to stay in so we could hit Charles Mound, IL the next morning.
Highpoint: Timm’s Hill
State: Wisconsin
Height: 1951 ft.
Highpoint #: 27
Date: 5/17/2003
Trails: N/A
Distance: About 1/2 mile roundtrip.
Vertical Gain: 100 feet
Time Taken: 20 minutes
Weather: Beautiful, sunny, 60’s
Group: JO, BC, Jay and Rick
Comments: We arrived at the parking lot for Timm’s Hill in the late
afternoon. This portion of Wisconsin is
quite beautiful, as it is mostly forest and it is sparsely populated. It was a gorgeous day, almost made us wish
we had another hike to do. The
highpoint is very well maintained, and there were quite a few other people
there today. The summit tower gives you
a bit of a view over the surrounding forest, but it certainly isn’t all that
impressive of a view. However, the
beauty of the surroundings made this a satisfying highpoint overall. Many states could learn from Wisconsin about
how to keep up an otherwise unimpressive highpoint. We stayed for about half an hour, then we sped down to Dubuque to
catch a hotel for the night. Finally, a
real bed to sleep in.
Left: JO at the highpoint of Timm’s Hill. Right: The view from the top of the summit tower. You can see for quite a ways, if only there were more to see.
We arrived at a hotel in Dubuque at about 10 pm on Saturday night, and we would have close to 24 hours straight of driving ahead of us, starting Sunday morning. We had called Mr. Wuebbels on Saturday to request access the following morning at about 9 a.m. Mr Wuebbels was very nice and just asked us to park at the street and not to let his dog out of the gate at the bottom of the hill. We left the hotel at about 8:00 Sunday morning and drove the 40 minutes of small roads east to Charles Mound.