Lake County High Point Trip Report
Date: June 24, 2001
Author: Richard L. Carey
Lake County is in northeastern Minnesota and starts just east of Ely and is the next county west of Cook
county which has the state high point. Stony Tower Hill is almost a drive-up with the right vehicle.
I was stopped by a muddy section of the road that an SUV or light truck would have gotten through easily.
The summit lookout tower has been removed. There is a survey post and no brass benchmark.
From the town of Ely head southeast on route 1 toward Lake Superior. Go a short distance past Isabella
Station to Stony Loop Road #103 on your right. This road is 0.8 miles east of milepost 223. This road is
also 23.6 miles west from highway 61. The road is marked as not suitable for standard passenger cars, but I
found it OK except for the one muddy spot. Drive in on this road and stay right at a junction in 1.8 miles.
The mud hole was at 2.1 miles and if you can proceed stay right at another junction at 2.4 miles. Park at
about 2.6 miles at the top of the hill. Look for an overgrown path through the forest on your right and walk
this about 0.1 of a mile north to the high point. The benchmark PID is SH0740 and the datasheet indicates
grading sometime before 1978 probably destroyed the benchmark.
UTM at the summit - (617666 E, 5273261 N) in Zone 15T.
[Webmasters comment: In the future, providing latitude and longitude would be of greater general usefullness.]