Mineral County Highpoint Trip Report
Black Rock on Allegheny Front (3,160+ ft)
Date: April 23, 2006
Author: Fred Lobdell with Mike Schwartz
I wish to thank Mike for accompanying me on this one. We followed his previous
report but according to him the going was somewhat more difficult this time.
Instead of the 2.5 hours he reported on his earlier hike, we took a bit more
than 5 hours for the round trip. We didn't find the cemetery or green-blazed
path but were able to follow the fence line. The footing wasn't great,
with rocks on the forest floor in many places, and the mountain laurel and
greenbriers didn't add to our enjoyment. We found a relatively newly bulldozed
rough road that we followed for a short distance but we ascended the wrong ramp
and had to bushwhack along the ridge crest to the large outcrop that is one
candidate for the highest area. Here a cairn has been built. We continued
northeast along the ridge, passing another cairn that we felt was placed to show
the path, and found a third cairn at another candidate for the high spot.
On the descent, we again picked up the new road and, after some consultation and
hand-wringing, decided to be bold and follow it down the mountain, not knowing
where we would come out. It brought us down through the steep part of the slope
but then continued in a direction that took us further away from our vehicles.
So we bushwhacked across a couple of pastures and emerged onto US 50 with an
uphill road walk of about 1.7 miles to get back to the cars.
Our recommendation for future hikers attempting this one is to stay to the
southeast side of the ridge, well off the ridge crest but above the steep part
of the slope. This seems to avoid a good deal of the rocky going and some of
the thickets. Future hikers may want to try to find out where the bulldozed
road begins but that appears to be at least several hundred feet lower than the
starting point used by previous highpointers.