Date: August 1, 2005 • Elevation: 1,279 feet • Prominence: 389 feet • Distance: 0.3 mile • Time: 30 minutes • Gain: 80 feet • Conditions: Clear and typically humid

Main • PB

The highpoint of Prince William County is not far from Millwood, where we were staying, a 40-minute drive along crowded highways. A year ago, we sought out this highpoint on our way to visit the Battlefields at Bull Run, where some of the most significant battles of the Civil War were fought. This should have been an easy visit to the highpoint, but I did not have the map and I tried to do this by instinct and guesswork.

On the 2004 journey, we followed US-50 east from Millwood, then south to US-15 for 5 miles toward the city of Manassas. Still short of the city, we turned west onto Logmill Road, towards the Bull Run Mountains Estates. We drove in a couple miles to where the main road came to a Y-junction. All we knew was to go up, so we went right and up a good road that steeply wiggled up the mountainside, passing numerous homes along the way.

Our progress was halted by a gate across the road. We could have walked but felt more comfortable checking out the approach from the other side, where there might be less homes and trespassing issues to deal with. We descended, got back onto Logmill, went south to Sumney Road, and followed that up. Shortly, it comes to (if I recall correctly) Lookout Road, marked Ridge Road on the map. We went straight, and drove to a dip in the road, but near a distinct highpoint. A guy was stringing cable but we weren't in his way. We walked up this dinky hill, took photos, walked out, and left, on our way to the battlefields.

A few hours later, I'm thumbing through our Virginia DeLorme atlas and what falls out? The map for Prince William County's highpoint. I studied it and realized we went up the wrong hill. We went up the hill south of the highpoint. Bah.

A year later, we're back in town. We planned a day in DC, but on the way, we revisited this highpoint. We retraced our route up Sumney to Lookout, and went farther, down the dip and up again, past our "wrong" hill and up a steeper grade that ended besides someone's home and driveway. We parked and knocked on the door but no one was home. No cars were in the driveway, but a lawn mower was out, as were some kid playthings.

We gave ourselves permission to walk the old track beside the yard into the trees, and up the short gradient to where it topped out near the radio towers at a fence. We entered into the forest to check for the benchmark and other outcrops, and tagged a few. We also walked past the fence into the radio yard and saw a cleared area with a distinct rock, higher than all else and with the benchmark. This was it. We tagged it and hiked back down, happy to get this one out of the way and looking forward to visiting the Washington D.C. highpoint, among the other things to see and do in the capital.