Franklin County High Point Trip Report

Date: June 28, 2003
Author: Dale Millsap

The trip reports of David Olson and Andy Martin are still valid. The roads are in excellent shape all the way to the faint road heading north within sight of Danish Pass. I saw no sign restricting travel, so I drove 1/4 mile up this road and parked below the 8600-foot contour. At this point, I loaded our 2.5-year-old boy into the Kelty Kid carrier, my wife loaded our 3-month-old boy into the front carrier, and we set off up the hill.

The forest is very mature, and provided us a nice relief from the hot sun, but was not too thick for easy travel. The slopes were rather steep, but amazingly, our 5-year-old boy set the pace and stayed in the lead all the way up, even picking the route between the cliffs to access the flat ridge area. From there we had a nice stroll up easy grades toward the two pinnacles. As we came over the last little rise, three bucks (one 3-4 point with two small spikes or 2-points) rose up from the trees and looked us over, then took off to the northwest.

We found a small baby food bottle register at the highest pinnacle, with Bob Martin and Bob Packard signed in a couple of years ago, and only a couple of other signatures. If it weren't for the occasional beer cans, I would think this place was rarely visited. So, five Millsaps stood at this pinnacle, then the lower western one, and covered a lot of other high ground nearby in order to feel confident of being at the HP.

On the way out, we observed two golden eagles riding the slope winds and thermals of the ridge line. We were camping at the south end of Franklin Basin, so we decided to drive west over Danish Pass on the way back. We found the road to be in excellent condition down Franklin Basin all the way to US-89.