Brunswick County Highpoint Trip Report

Date: June 29, 2004
Author: Don Desrosiers

For my purposes, I have numbered the areas 1 - 5 going west to east.

Starting in Danieltown (mapquest directions from Dinwiddie Co HP are good) go south on VA 46 and turn right (west) onto SR 137. Zero your odometer. At 1.7 miles turn left into McDowell Ln and park at the 471 spot elevation intersection.

Area #1 looks to be either in the front yard of #100 (1st house on the right) or in the field just to the east of the dirt road (I vote for in front of the house). The guy in #100 was tickled pink that the HP might be in his front yard and you just KNEW he was going in the house to call someone. He let me wander to my heart's content. (It is amazing what you can get away with when you have a clipboard, a GPS, and a pen.)

Area #2 in on the top of the hill across SR 137 and an easy walk from area #1. The property (and the field at area #1) are owned by the folks in the white house on the left. The property owner was working in the field just below the HP and gave me permission to go on up. The level showed it was clearly lower than area #1.

Get back into the car and head east on 137 for 3/10 mile to the 468 spot elevation. Area #3 is a small area on the north side of 137, to the NW of the "468". First, it is clearly lower than the area south of 137. Second, discussions with the landowner at area #5 indicate that there was at one time a house in this general area, so this point may well be man-made. I believe this area can be discounted.

The road shown going south from 137 to area #4 is a driveway. I walked up because it lets me get a better sense of the land and because that is how you do things in this part of the country. There was nobody home, although there were livestock in the pens. The HP looked to be behind and to the west of the house, but it is quite overgrown, so lots of walking is in order. My sense was that this area was lower than area #1, but I could not get a clear shot to level it.

For area #5, head back east again on 137. There are a pair of dirt roads shown on the map that form an inverted "V", the west leg of the "V" is gone, but the east leg is easy enough to find. I drove in to about the 450 line and started walking. Met the owner of the house shown just under the 441. He gave permission to drive up the road if I wanted, but I chose to walk. The RR tracks in the map have been removed. The butterfly shaped area is easy to find and is currently planted in large portions with tobacco. I took the HP to be about 125 yds W of the dirt road, although YMMV.

The HP is probably #1, but #5 looks to be a fairly close second.