5-3-22, 1:00 PM, home –
Who was that on the phone, SPHP? The fanatic again?
Yup! He’s run into 3 feet of snow on the road to Crooks Tower (7,137 ft.), so he’s got a much longer hike ahead of him than expected. Going to be running late. Won’t arrive here until sometime this evening now.
The “fanatic” was Dennis Stewart, aka “Stewy”. Neither Lupe nor SPHP knew Dennis, but that was about to change. He was a man on a mission, many missions, actually. Dennis’ purpose on this particular trip was to climb the 10 highest named peaks, plus the 10 highest named county high points, of both South Dakota and Nebraska.
Fanatic wasn’t an unfair label. Dennis owned the tallest indoor climbing wall in the Midwest – 32 feet high, more than 500 square feet of surface area, with an 11 foot overhang – a feature incorporated into his private home! At the tender age of 73, Dennis was still working on so many peakbagging lists that he knew there was no way he would ever come close to completing many of them.
No doubt about it, Loop. Dennis is our kind of fanatic!
After reaching the Black Hills region earlier today, Dennis had already been to both Terry Peak (7,064 ft.) and White Tail Peak (6,962 ft.). Tomorrow, Lupe and SPHP were going to join him on his quest.
At least, that was the plan. Dennis was not only a prolific peakbagger, but a runner, too. At one point in his life, Dennis had helped set a world record in the 2 mile relay as a member of the University of Kansas track team. In 2019, Dennis had won the 800 meter in the Huntsman World Championship in his age category.
Worrisome, actually.
If Dennis takes off running up all the mountains tomorrow, feel free to run right along with him, Loopster. You know me. Not even going to try to keep up.
5-4-22, 9:24 AM, Flag Mountain – Dennis had reassuringly promised not to run up any mountains, although it would have been fine if he did. SPHP had no intention of slowing him down. Flag Mountain (6,937 ft.) wasn’t going to be a problem in any case. A simple drive up. After SPHP parked the RAV4 at the end of USFS Road No. 416, a set of stone steps was all that had to be managed to reach what was left of the old fire lookout tower up top.
The only real issue was the weather. Although Flag Mountain normally offered sweeping views of a huge swath of territory E of the edge of the limestone plateau country, Lupe wasn’t going to get to show off her Black Hills to Dennis here today. Foggy and snowing!
While Dennis searched for the survey benchmark shown on the map out along the W end of the summit ridge, Lupe got up on what was left of the lookout tower foundation wall. Unfortunately, no hint of the usual grand view was to be seen.
Dennis found no sign of the survey benchmark. Loopster had been to Flag Mountain on half a dozen prior occasions. SPHP kind of thought that she actually had seen the benchmark somewhere up here before, but couldn’t find it, either.
Stewy had a routine he went through at each mountain he visited. It was interesting to see how he operated. Verbal notes, some of which were based on his phone’s GPS, were taken by speaking into a portable recorder. Date, time, distance traveled, elevation gain, exact location and elevation, weather and route conditions, what views were present, and anything else Dennis felt might be of interest were all mentioned. This data would eventually serve as the basis of written records and a trip report which he would post online.
Since he usually traveled alone, Dennis also had a separate camera and tripod he could use to take a decent selfie at each summit.
Given the weather, there wasn’t much reason to linger. As snowflakes continued to fall, everyone headed back down to the RAV4.
Since tomorrow’s forecast was much better, and Dennis had already spent the last 4 days since leaving home peakbagging, he was inclined to call it a day. After all, why climb mountains in this soup, and not get to see much of anything? In the meantime, he could relax in comfort while catching up on some of his record-keeping.
Made perfect sense, except for two things. The next peak on Dennis’ list was Crows Nest Peak (7,048 ft.). Although not all that far from Flag Mountain, Crows Nest wasn’t anywhere near the other Black Hills peaks Dennis still needed to tag. A quick visit to Crows Nest while in the area made sense from the standpoint of efficiency alone.
Furthermore, Dennis wouldn’t miss out on a thing by making the jaunt up Crows Nest today. At over 7,000 feet, Crows Nest Peak was certainly among the highest points of the entire Black Hills range, but incredibly misleadingly named. The surrounding territory was gently rolling and mostly forested. No distant views of, or from, the summit even on the best of days.
Lupe’s local expert advice was to climb Crows Nest today. Stewy was willing to give it a shot.
5-4-22, 10:23 AM, Boles Canyon Road and USFS Road No. 117.5K – Lupe was happy! She sniffed around while Dennis finished getting ready. Although remote Crows Nest Peak was a favorite place, the Carolina Dog hadn’t been here since the day of her Mighty Dingo Missile Launch nearly 4 years ago. This time, Loop was looking forward to an easy, and less painful, mile long romp up to the red dirt pond near the summit.
A faint road took off to the SE through open territory from here. Within just a few minutes, Dennis was ready to go. Lupe, Stewy, and SPHP set off along the faint road, heading for the trees.
Upon reaching the forest, the faint road merged into USFS Road No. 266. After passing through a gate in a barbed wire fence, the steepest part of the trek was ahead. Nothing too difficult, culminating in a snowy stretch near the top.
The snowy stretch ended and the road flattened out, becoming a sloppy mess as Lupe entered a clearing that had been logged off years ago. No. 266 began angling E across the clearing. Before long, it would lead to a side spur that went N up to the red dirt pond near the Crows Nest Peak summit, but there was little benefit to traipsing through the mud.
Abandoning the road, everyone headed NE, cutting across the clearing. Lupe was soon in an aspen forest, hopping over deadfall and winding around bushes, as she worked her way up a slope.
As the terrain flattened out again, Lupe reached the spur that came up from No. 266. The red dirt pond was just around the next bend.
The Crows Nest Peak survey benchmark was only 300 feet E of the pond, tucked away deeper into the forest. Looper led Dennis right to it. The surrounding terrain was so flat that, as far as could be determined, this really was the mighty true summit of Crows Nest Peak (7,048 ft.).
While Dennis set about documenting the ascent, SPHP noticed a wooden post roughly 50 feet E of the survey marker. Going over to check it out, Lupe discovered directional survey marker No. 2 only a few feet away.
Having found the No. 2 directional marker, before departing an effort was made to locate the No. 1 marker. Lupe, Stewy, and SPHP fanned out through the forest. However, a 5 or 10 minute search yielded no results.
Well, Dennis was satisfied. He’d done what he needed to do here. Soon everyone was traipsing back past the red dirt pond again.
This was it for the day. Not much effort had been required, but it had been a pleasant introductory outing with Stewy. Lupe and SPHP had very much enjoyed being back in the limestone plateau country again.
And the good news, of course, was that Expedition No. 303 was merely a warm-up for more ambitious adventures with Stewy tomorrow!
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