Crook County High Point Trip Report

Cement Ridge - three spots, one at 6,674 ft

Date: July 21, 2002
Author: Dave Covill

From Butte Co SD, we proceeded to Crook and Weston Counites in WY. Oddly enough, while one accesses Butte SD from WY, one accesses Crook & Weston WY from SD! I had been to both of these previously. For Crook, we followed Mike Schwartz's directions exactly. We agreed with all mileage.

The access road up to Cement Ridge has been re-routed from that shown on the topo map. From the intersection on the northwest side of the cohp, we hiked steeply up through aspen trees to gain the ridge at its west end. This is near the cairned spot where there is a spot elevation of 6,674 feet. Jerry & Betty Brekhus had left a coke can register. We signed in.

We found the 2 candidate spots by GPS, and found the east spot near the state line to be 32 feet lower. I used my trusty hand level to work my way uphill from the low saddle between them, and determined the east spot to be 32 feet higher than the saddle, then on the return found the west spot to be 62.5 feet higher, a delta of 30.5 feet, jiving closely with the GPS. I don't think anyone needs to visit the east spot. The Cement Ridge Look-Out Tower sits in the same contour, but the marker is at the high ground, and is labelled as 6,647 feet; 27 feet lower.

We contemplated driving to the Weston WY cohp via Dunkin Road, but thought it might be slightly shorter but slower being gravel or dirt. We returned to SD the way we had come, via Savoy, and headed south towards US 85, following it to the WY line, near the Weston Co HP. We saw where the Dunkin Road came out, and it looked to be in very nice shape, and would have been ~10-15 minutes quicker.