Morrison County Highpoint Trip Report

Date: September 25, 2004
Author: Mark Ness

From Little Falls, MN, took MN 371 North to Camp Ripley Junction, turned left onto MN 115, then followed signs to Camp Ripley's main gate. Gate guard waved me on without stopping, continued on main road, which changed to East Boundary Road as it went into the back area. At mile 10.3 after entering camp, turned left onto Lake Alott Road for 0.5 mile to a locked gate. Hiked from there on Lake Alott Road, turned right onto muddy, grassy road, for 14 minutes, then turned right onto a path marked "C9", for 8 minutes to the middle of the broad-topped summit. Walked around the area on both sides, placed a 2-rock cairn on the highest mound in the area. Returned to main trail, continued northwest toward the 2nd HP.

Did not find foot path shown on topo map but further on found non-maintained woods road and followed that to the remains of the lookout tower. This contour is smaller and has two small hills on it with the benchmark in between. The higher hill has the metal corner pieces from the tower.

My hike was about 7 miles in 3 hours 6 minutes.

For others wishing to visit Morrison, I recommend that if the gate on Lake Alott Road is blocked, turn around and attempt the next road to the north. I followed that around as it wound around to within about 0.6 mile (straight-line distance) from the lookout tower. It would have cut a considerable amount of time off my hike.