Granville County Highpoint Trip Report
Date: February 2006
Author: Peter Barr
I'd have to look at a map with street names but this report should help for the
northern area. Start from the highway that is east of the HP area. When you
are about due east, perhaps ever so slightly north of what would be due east,
you'll see a dirt road heading towards the HP area going west. If you take this
road, you'll pass an old cemetery to your right. The road is dirt and rough and
I only traveled about halfway to the HP before several ditches made me get out
and hoof it.
After a very long, dirt and sun-baked straightaway, the dirt road comes to a
fork and there is also a metal wire boundary fence-type thing here, posted.
I went right as it appeared the left fork would cut south in front of the HP and
back downhill. I chose poorly. Take the left fork and follow it to its high
ground for maybe a quarter mile, then you'll have to turn off the trail/road and
bushwhack through open woods to the obvious HP. There are several rock
outcroppings, one of which is the HP. On one of these boulders is Andy Martin's
cairn with empty ginger ale can. Right before the HP, you'll have to negotiate
big piles of chopped down and burned scraggly trees and wood. As I recall,
there seemed to be a faint trail through it all. Don't stop short before this
clear area, as there were some rocky outcroppings in the wooded area after
immediate turning off-trail and ascending uphill.
If one had 4WD, you could drive to within 1/4 mile of the HP. I chose the right
of the aforementioned fork, realized my error and bushwhacked south and hit the
dirt road that would have been the left fork. The bushwhack was only a few
hundred yards but among the worst I've ever done as far as blood lost and poison
ivy gained. Learn by my errors -- don't go in summer, don't go at high noon,
and go left, not right. There is a pretty good view from the HP, as it's semi-
open. Then again, there's nothing to see from the top anyways. Just remember,
look for the cemetery, take the left fork, turn off trail at the high ground,
look for the cairn, and you're good to go.
The southern Granville CoHP area is fairly easy. I went from a newly developed
neighborhood without houses yet, drove to the end of it where the paved road
turns to a gravel road with a gate and mailbox, bushwhacked steeply uphill to
the left until I reached a manmade summit clearing with Tallyho BM and 2nd
Tallyho BM with arrow pointing to the first one. There is also a NC Survey sign
and stake. The BM is in cement, the one with arrow was in a rock, I think.
The summit had some big dirt mounds that were manmade from clearing trees and land.
The true HP is one of the many rocks and boulders littering the summit near the
BM. There was a dirt road 4wd path that came in from the west; you could likely
walk this easier than bushwhack but I don't know where it starts.
Granville NC has two areas but, depending on how close they are, I think one
could be eliminated since the northern most is a spot elevation and the
southern-most has a BM, so exact elevations might be known for both.
Since elevation difference is likely less than 5 feet, the differences in boulders and
rock outcropping heights is likely unable to be measured since neither reading
was likely done on the exact HP.
Hope this helps. Granville NC (the northern spot) actually is among one of the
more isolated spots, in terms as distance from paved road, in any of the middle
NC counties, meaning non-mountains and non-swamps or farms.
Both HPs have definite tells (cairn and BM).