Whitley County Highpoint Trip Report

unnamed (1,000+ ft)

Date: March 17, 2007
Author: John Hasch

Mileage zeroed at the intersection of IN 9 and CR 600N.

1.0 - Intersection with county line road - CR 700N (Whitley) a/k/a CR 600S (Noble) - turn right (east)
2.0 - Arrive at intersection with CR 250E

I attempted to use my knowledge of the local roads to navigate from Kosciusko County to Whitley County. In retrospect, choose your own route to the zero point. There were a lot of turns in my course, even if it did save some miles.

I turned right and parked along the western side of CR 250E. I chose this route to the HP because there were no fences and therefore no poison ivy. I hiked parallel to the fence west until I was across from the house in Noble County on the north side of the county line road. The sun was setting and very low in the sky, so I could not see much as I was approaching this spot. When I turned around, the contour of the farm field was evident and I hiked back to the HP. The field at this spot was about 15 feet above the road where my car was parked and I could just barely see the roof of my car as I looked east.

Back at the car, I looked for the 988BM benchmark shown on the topo map. Not being a topo expert, I am not sure what I would expect to find. I walked around the fields on all sides of the intersection and saw nothing. The only evidence of measuring activity was a white cross, painted in the middle of the county line road just east of the intersection with CR 250E. Within this cross, I found three survey nails lined up in a north-south direction, with the middle one being in the middle of the cross. Is it possible that this is all there is to the 988BM? I did not spend more time looking for a more formal BM on the side of the road. I headed for home, not knowing where the BM was located.