All posts tagged as Charles Mound IL

On Friday June 3rd I stood at the highest point in Illinois with my good friend and highpointing mentor Rick Overholt. This was my 43rd highpoint and Ricks 48th.

A pair of very manly men standing at the highest point in Illinois

Highpoint Statistics:
Summit Date: Friday June 3rd, 2016
State: Illinois
Elevation: 1,235′
US Rank by Height: 45th
Round Trip Hiking Time: 20 Minutes

Highpoint Links:
Posts
Photo Gallery
Trip Report
GPS Track

You will find the entire Trip Report posted here. To view a sortable table of all of the highpoints with completion dates, trip reports, photo galleries, blog entries an GPS tracks, visit the US State Highpoint Progress Page.

We are 30 minutes into the 3 hour drive from downtown Chicago to Charles Mound and are already close to exhausting our repertoire of driving games. Rick plays a mean game of iSpy and I’m about $700 down already, but I’m hoping to make it up in a game of high stakes License Plate Bingo.

The Highpoint
Charles mound is an easy 2.5 mile round trip hike. The challenge here is logistical in nature, as this highpoint is located on a private farm and therefore public access is limited to 4 weekends a year; the first weekend of June, July, August, and September.

Fun Fact
The Sears Tower (Now the Willis Tower) in Chicago rises 1,450 feet above ground with a ground elevation of 583 feet. That puts the top of the Sears Tower at an elevation of 2,033 feet above sea level, nearly 800 feet higher than Charles Mound. However, it is obviously not considered to be the state highpoint since it is man made.

This morning I woke up on a sailboat along with my good friend Rick Overholt. No is isn’t one of those stories where there’s a tiger locked in the bathroom and people are missing. This is a story about a journey to stand on the high places of America, and it’s a story that is drawing to an end in a matter of months. But I digress, so let’s get back to the boat.

The Beneteau sailboat has a nicely appointed cabin.

This particular sailboat is docked in Belmont Harbor in the shadow of downtown Chicago, and it belongs to freind and fellow mountain climber JR Peacock. It’s a classic 35′ Beneteau with Twin cabins, rich woods, and a full suite of amenities. JR Spends a month or two out of every year traveling on it and it is going to make a great home base from which to tackle the Indiana highpoint, and experience a bit of the Chicago culture.

The Highpoint Plan

Tomorrow, Rick and I we will make our attempt on Charles Mound the 1,235′ state highpoint of Indiana and this will be number 48 for him and 43 for me. I say “attempt” because after getting shut down on the Arizona highpoint in April I’m not taking anything for granted. That said, this is an easy one, and the only challenge is that it is only accessible 3 weekends out of the year. It’s on private property, and the owners limit access. So barring blizzards, floods, tornados or frog plagues, we should have this one completed tomorrow.