It’s right here, a pile of rocks at 40 degrees zero minutes north latitude, and 84 degrees 51 minutes west longitude, off Elliot Road past seven barking dogs, 25 horses and Robbie J. White’s double-wide mobile home.
You can’t miss it.
Well, you could. There’s no sign pointing out this unique bit of Hoosier topography. The signs keep getting stolen.
The unglamorous rock pile is Indiana’s officially designated High Point at 1,257 feet above sea level, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
You could never tell by eyeballing it, an imperceptible rise in a flat sea of eastern Indiana winter bean fields, two miles west of the Ohio state line.
Yet oddly enough, it draws several hundred determined tourists from around the country each year. They stand around for a few minutes and maybe take pictures of the rocks.
They are members of the National Highpointers Club, about 1,000 hardy souls who visit High Points in different states. The group even has a quarterly newsletter and an Internet site.
The idea is to visit as many High Points as possible–a daunting challenge because, unlike Indiana’s pathetically low High Point, some are formidable and dangerous.
Like Alaska’s Mount McKinley, a fearsome 20,320-foot glacier, the highest point in the United States.
“We aren’t doing that one,” said Hoosier Highpointers Bob and Marjorie Begeman, who’ve racked up an impressive 47 High Points. Three will elude them forever. McKinley; 14,410-foot Mount Rainier in Washington state and 12,799-foot Granite Peak in Montana’s Beartooth Mountains. It’s a 26-mile, one-way hike just to the base of Granite Peak. Then it starts up.
“We don’t do ice climbs,” says Bob, 72, a retired engineer who lives in Indianapolis. Marjorie, 65, is a retired physical therapist. They climbed 27 High Points in 1990.
They’ve kind of adopted the Indiana High Point, visiting several times a year, tidying up, picking up trash, checking the sign-in book they put in a waterproof ammunition case, in a box hung on a tree.
The book is gone, Bob. Stolen. Robbie J. White discovered the theft while spreading manure.
Bob: “Oh, no! We’ll have to get out there and replace it!”
In 1991, Bob built a metal stairway so visitors could reach the High Point without tearing down farmer Robbie’s fence.
The High Point property belongs to Kim Goble, who lives 15 miles away in Richmond. She bought the land in 1982 from Robbie, who lives in the double-wide, the closest house to the distinguished pile of rocks.
Highpointers in search of the rocks stop at Robbie’s double-wide, seeking directions. He accepts his role as unofficial High Point greeter with good humor and Hoosier hospitality.
“We get about two a week, don’t you imagine, Jan?” he asks his wife. “Summertime, we’ll get maybe three or four. I tell the kids to stay away from strangers. We don’t need no trouble, do we Jan?”
Until about 10 years ago, when it was re-surveyed by satellite, the official High Point was about 200 yards to the southwest, in the middle of Robbie’s beanfield. Years of erosion, plowing and soil compaction lowered it 18 inches, giving rise to the new High Point.
“See, look at this,” he said, pulling aside some brush a quarter-mile south of the official High Point and the former official High Point. Sure enough, right there in a block of concrete, is a brass cylinder that says: “1932 U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. Ref. Marker No. 2.” Presumably, it’s an old High Point marker.
“This is the scuttlebutt,” Robbie said. “I heard the neighbors kept arguing about it and moving that thing around. So I don’t know what the real deal is.”
To avoid being bothered, Robbie put a couple of signs on Elliot Road over the years with an arrow pointing to the high points. They always got stolen.
Robbie finds most Highpointers polite and respectful but he can always spot them coming up the driveway.
“They don’t look like people around here. I’m always congenial, except once when some guys walked on my beans. I said: ‘How’d you like it if I walked in your flower bed?’ I was probably in a bad mood.”
After spending weeks climbing Mount McKinley, risking your life and gasping for air, the sense of accomplishment must be exhilarating, the view from the summit breathtaking.
But ascending the Hoosier High Point means walking a few steps from the car to a pile of rocks with a stick in it, a few gum wrappers and some trees. Oh, well.
