Gila County High Point Trip Report
Date: November 1, 2003
Author: Scott Surgent
This was a spur of the moment trip - so spur, that we didn't even have maps beforehand. I bought some at a
local store. Anyway, we managed to time our visit for the first really cold front of the season. Once on top
of the rim the temps stayed in the 30s with drizzle, fog and some sleet. Nice! We found the HP areas with
no difficulties. I found my entry from 11/11/99 when I visited with Ken Akerman on the Promontory Butte area.
The old log is still there and in great shape. This is definitely a HP for the county HP crowd as the
only names listed therein are from this group. Definitely not a point one gets to "by accident".
For the second area on Myrtle Point, we battled a cell of heavy rain and sleet - the 10 minutes we were out
walking managed to soak us both. The cairn was disassembled and on my way back to the truck I found the
double red can and log simply laying about in the grass. Someone had obviously kicked everything apart
and tossed the log aside. It must have been recent as despite the rains, the log (w/o the baggie)
was still in okay shape. I reassembled everything, including the cairn, and put the log cans back in place.
However, I could not find the baggie so the next visitor may want to bring one.
The Gila HPs are closed in the winter as the forest roads are not maintained. We saw a few people in the area.
Fog was so thick we had 20-foot visibility in places.