Unless you happen to be as rugged as I am—which is, I realize, highly unlikely—you probably aren’t familiar with the Peakbaggers, a loose-knit but increasingly large group of highly motivated self-starters determined to scale the highest points of all fifty states (and, for the true completists among us, the District of Columbia).
The Peakbaggers also have an official sub-club, the Highpointers, who publish several fine guidebooks to help climbers in their quest. Peak bagging is, as you might imagine, an arduous, expensive, and frequently lonely hobby. Many of the high points are very high indeed (Alaska’s Mount McKinley is 20,320 feet), and require the sort of courage and mountaineering skill I haven’t yet mustered. I’m working my way up, though, and have already tackled Florida’s Britton Hill (345 feet), Mississippi’s Woodall Mountain (806 feet), Illinois’s Charles Mound (1,235 feet), and Minnesota’s own Eagle Mountain (2,301 feet). If my records are correct, I’ve so far bagged six or seven high points, and last year, in perhaps my most memorable and challenging summit experience to date, I managed to scale Hawkeye Point, the highest elevation in Iowa.
I started my trek to Hawkeye Point from Bigelow, Minnesota, which is, according to the sign just outside of town, the “Home of Swampy Days.” On the border with Iowa, southwest of Worthington, Bigelow is two miles north of Hawkeye Point. It is the launch site for most expeditions to Iowa’s summit. Folks in Bigelow have grown up in the shadow of the fabled Point, and the town’s guides and outfitters do a modest business. There is also a large ranch just outside of town where llamas can presumably be rented to haul gear from the base camp to the peak, and there is no shortage of stout local lads who are willing to provide this service as well.
I, however, was determined to make the climb solo, entirely unassisted, and without supplemental oxygen. I set out from Bigelow early in the morning under a bright and cloudless sky. According to conventional wisdom, there is a ten-week optimal window of opportunity for tackling Hawkeye Point—generally from late March through early June, after the threat of winter storms has passed and before the oppressive humidity of mid-summer in Iowa sets in. While I had a support vehicle along for my ascent, I had vowed to make the trip from Bigelow on foot, and sent my companions ahead to establish a base camp and begin emergency readiness preparations. After a relatively easy two-hour hike I arrived at the Donna and Merrill Sterler farm. The Sterlers are corn and soybean farmers, and Hawkeye Point is located in the north-central corner of their 187-acre tract. There are very few high points in the United States that are situated on private property, and the Sterlers were entirely ignorant of the fact that they were living on the roof of Iowa until Merrill encountered surveyors nosing around his farm in 1970.
These men were members of an official state topographical expedition assigned the arduous task of locating Iowa’s high point. Months of difficult work came to a startling conclusion that day on the Sterler farm, as the surveyors, trudging through the fierce winds that have foiled many subsequent expeditions to Hawkeye Point, planted their flag on the summit and pronounced themselves satisfied that they had reached their goal. Their findings, however, would not be official until 1972, when Hawkeye Point—at 1,670 feet—received formal acknowledgement as the highest elevation in all of Iowa.
After stopping briefly to chat with Mrs. Sterler, who was preparing lunch and has lived on the property virtually all of her life (her parents moved to town in 1946, she says, but six years later Donna and her husband, then recently married, settled back in at the old family home and resumed farming), I set out for Hawkeye Point. The trek ended at the summit, three hundred yards from the back door, and took me across grassy terrain that required navigating around a few rocks and patches of spring mud. I had to pause just below the Point to catch my breath, and there was one brief, harrowing moment when I lost radio contact with my support staff (which was hunkered down in a Subaru station wagon on a gravel road one-eighth of a mile from the summit).
I had no sooner reached the U.S. geological survey marker that officially signals the highest point in Iowa when dark clouds began to roll in and the wind began to pick up, carrying sharp granules of dirt and the whiff of ammonium fertilizer. The always-temperamental Point allowed me one brief but unforgettable vista of fields stretching away far into the distance.
Before I began my hurried descent I took time to sign the official logbook, and noted (with considerable and—if I dare say—justifiable pride) that each year fewer people successfully attempt Hawkeye Point than climb Mount Everest.
—Brad Zellar
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