Wayne County High Point Trip Report
four of 13 areas (1,780+ ft)
Date: June 28, 2003
Author: Ken Oeser
For one area on the Clinton county line, see the report for Clinton county.
It is a 13 mile round trip hike or bike ride.
three areas on Round Cliff
From the junction of KY200/KY1009 just north of Powersburg, take KY200 south 5.9 miles to Hancock
Grocery and find a parking space along the highway just south of the market. Many ATV riders use this
market every weekend to visit the ATV trails nearby that stretch to all the Wayne county highpoints over
many miles.
Stop and get drinks, snacks, or sandwiches at the market, then walk along the gravel road beside the market
east about 100 yards, then turn left, go another 100 yards, then turn right and follow the ATV trail uphill.
This trail is indicated on the topo as a dotted line. Follow this ATV trail east for 1 mile to its crest,
passing a right side road along the way.
(Kevin and I used this side road and had to bushwhack some extra effort.)
From the crest follow the ridge to the right (south) and follow it either all the way to the cliffs on the mountain,
or to the point where the ridge starts rising and head due east and hit the cliffs on the other side of
the hollow (shortest route). From this next point and ridge (which points northwest), go east to the next ridge,
where the topo indicates a gentle ridge climbing the mountain. There is only a 30 foot wide section of
ridge that can be hiked up here without climbing, so the topo is misleading, but head due south, gain the top,
and hike south another 1/4 mile to the summit. Two other contours on the top are southeast and southwest.
We visited both, but the middle, larger contour is likely higher. It looks like very few people visit the
summit of this mountain due to the cliffs that line its perimeter all the way around. I saw one other area on
the west side where I climbed up 15 feet and saw another band of large rocks, so we didn't try it although it
could be an alternate route to the top. Round trip here is about 4 miles if one makes no route errors, and we
did about 4.5 miles by following the western cliff line for a while.
Total mileage for this county's 13 areas is about 32 miles. This consists of a 13 mile bike ride or hike to the
county liner with about 600-1000 total elevation gain; a 15 mile bike ride or hike to the 9 areas around BM Miller -
again with 600-1000 feet of gain; and the 4 to 4.5 mile hike to Round Cliff and its 3 areas with a 640
foot gain.
The total effort required should put this one way up there on the toughest in the east list.