Benson County High Point Trip Report
The Buttes - one area with BM 1878 and three other areas on The Buttes (1,870+ ft)
Date: May 6, 2002
Authors: Julie Kawa, Jobe Wymore, Pat Wymore
From the junction of ND2 and a paved road going south in the center of Leeds, North Dakota, set the
odometer and head south on the unnamed paved road. This road is obvious and ND2 has a huge red block
building on the southeast corner. Head south and at 5.1 miles the pavement will end and there will be an
intersection with a minimum maintenance road on your right, heading west. This has to be the best
minimum maintenance road that I have seen in North Dakota and we set the odometer once again and
headed down it. At mile 2.9 the road will curve to your right and a lesser dirt road will continue westward.
Keep on the lesser dirt road and immediately thereafter a field road will be to the south marked with a No
Hunting sign. There might be a fence to open but at the time we were there it was just laying off to the side
on the ground. Continue south on the field road reaching a cattle pen 1/2 mile later. We drove around the
cattle pen and parked right after the place where the road began to curve to the right.
From where we parked we got out and walked about 60 yards southward(ish) reaching a south-running
fence line. We followed the fence line as it gained a tiny bit of elevation and then when we could, crossed
over to the east side of it still following it south. Shortly again, we reached a gate and on the other side a
dirt road that we got on a followed eastward uphill to the HP areas about 125 - 150 yards later.
The area containing BM Beaver 1946 hand leveled higher than the other 3 areas that are the little bumps
circling the BM area. A fire pit has been built on the highest. This was a quickie, only taking about 20
minutes round trip.