Platte County Highpoint Trip Report
Date: May 26, 2005
Author: Adam Helman
northern approach via Miller Ranch
This effort was part of a
larger journey
in late May through early June 2005.
The route taken here was suggested by Kevin Williamson after his successful experience
at Platte County the previous year. Currently Kevin's report is in the editing queue -
one that contains GPS-derived coordinates for key road junctions along the route.
Thereby coordinates are not provided here in anticipation of Kevin's report's posting.
Paved road access is from Wyoming 34 - which joins Interstate 25 at Exit 73 about six miles
south of Wheatland, Wyoming. After about twenty miles of driving southwest on route 34,
locate signed Mule Creek Road on your left (south). Take it for some twenty miles of
dirt road to the highpoint, passing the Miller Ranch - at which point the road grid
degenerates from good dirt/gravel (30 M.P.H. at times) to a series of grassy two-tracks for which I
recommended that you have a high clearance vehicle (four wheel drive is not needed).
Contact Cody Evans, ranch foreman, at 307-322-2066 for access permission.
The track you must take begins life at a right (west) turn from the Miller Ranch access road,
and climbs the east ridge of the hill immediately to the north and west of the ranch home.
If you drive through the ranch then you have gone too far - turn around and find the correct
(and rutted) dirt road a few hundred yards before reaching the ranch.
I had considerable heartache driving the relevant tracks to the highpoint in a
Dodge Neon rental. Terrible noises were heard under the vehicle at points.
In contrast, the two highpoint areas are easy to locate once parked at the southern county line,
along the relevant track, and at a gated fence which marks the boundary.
One highpoint area is immedately at-hand, some fifty meters east, as a set of boulders.
The second area, and nearly as obvious, is a few hundred meters west northwest. Do not confuse
the (higher) hills on the west southwest horizon with the desired highpoint - these hills
are in another county. You must negotiate a north-south fence to access the western highpoint -
one that was paralleled on the final (driving) push to the suggested highpoint parking area.
The total time from pavement to pavement was 3 hours 1 minute.