Kitsap County High Point Trip Report

Gold Mountain (1,761 ft)

Date: October 26, 2002
Authors: Duane Gilliland and Bob Bolton

We followed Bill Jacobs' near-perfect directions (corrected in Jeff Howbert's report) to the locked gate southwest of the mountain, then got on mountain bikes and headed up the road. The upper part of the mountain was shrouded in fog, so we knew we would have a challenge finding the HP.

I had read Jeff Howbert's report some time ago, but had forgotten the particulars. I decided to not read it again until after we made our own determination of the HP. I had set the GPS using coordinates obtained from Topozone.com. They were (47.5488° N, 122.7852° W). When we got to the eastern towers, we went to the highest rocks, but the GPS was pointing west-southwest about 300 feet. The unit's elevation readings were mostly between 1730 and 1740 feet. Thinking that this still might be the HP, I set my altimeter watch (20-foot precision) to the expected 1760 feet. Then we set out to see where the GPS coordinates would lead. As Jeff's report indicates, there is an overgrown road leading west from the junction to these towers from the main road, and it seemed to provide access to the area the GPS was pointing to, so up that road we went. When the road petered out, there seemed to be an old trail leading up the hill to the north (and the GPS pointed in that direction), so we followed it to a knoll with a stump on the top (who left all those ribbons up there?) and a benchmark in the rock. The BM was labeled "Gold Hill", but showed no elevation. The GPS now pointed only about 40+ feet east-northeast, which is more in keeping with the experience I've had with other waypoints derived from Topozone.com. The GPS's elevation stayed in the range of 1,740-1,750 feet with at least one spell over 1,750 feet. My altimeter watch still said 1,760.

Then we went back to the main road and followed it to the western towers. Once again, the elevation on the GPS stayed mostly between 1,730 and 1,740 feet, but the altimeter watch was still 1760. We were convinced that the central knob was the HP. After that we read Jeff's report, and were pleased to find that he had reached the same conclusion we did.

You can get a good idea of what we discovered if you go to Topozone.com and search using the following coordinates, which came from my GPS unit at the three areas we checked. They point unerringly to those same three areas on the map. The road on Topozone.com is that overgrown one which leads to the HP. The other roads are not shown on the map.

(47.54939° N, 122.78419 ° W) - eastern towers
(47.54876° N, 122.78545 ° W) - cental knob (HP)
(47.54851° N, 122.78657 ° W) - western towers

The only disappointment was the fog-caused lack of views of the Puget Sound region, although I suspect the trees would have blocked the view if the fog hadn't.