The Path to the Proper Summit of the Rockies

More than 12,000 feet up, the summit team gathers on the
Continental Divide. L-R: Dog “Ella”, Warren Ward, Chris
Trevillion, Justin Abrahamson, JB Guyton, Doyle Abrahamson,
and Heather Robinson. According to Ward, Ella, a 12-year-old
Australian Shepherd, has made about 20 trips to the top of the
divide specifically for surveying in her career.
Displayed with permission • The American Surveyor • July/August • Copyright 2007 Cheves Media • www.TheAmericanSurveyor.com
nce in a lifetime
an opportunity
may present
itself to retrace
the footsteps of the original
surveyors of a line so
significant that it shaped
the course of our
country’s growth.
>> John B. Guyton, LS
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The 40th parallel, surveyed in the
mid-1800s as the line that defines the
border between the Nebraska and
Kansas territories, was an important
reference line for early surveyors. It was
the basis of the United States Public
Land Survey system used throughout
much of the middle and western states,
defining those neatly laid out squares
that are clearly visible to modern day air
travelers. The first mapping of this line
across the plains became much more
difficult when survey teams came upon
a formidable obstacle, the Continental
Divide in the Rocky Mountains. Baseline
Road in Boulder, Colorado is aligned
with the 40th parallel, where the high
plains and the foothills of the Rocky
Mountains meet. The 40th parallel
intersects the Divide approximately 20
linear miles (as the crow flies) west of
Boulder on a razor-edge ridge of loose
rocks between Mt. Jasper and Mt. Neva.
Back in the 1850s, United States
Deputy Surveyors placed landmarks
for the 40th parallel, beginning at the
Zack Gowan gets a GNSS position on the 1867 stone west of the summit. Just above
him, JB Guyton points to the stump of one of the bearing trees that proved the location.
Second Guide Meridian (west of the 6th
Principal Meridian) running westerly and
ending at the “Summit of the Rockies,”
as stipulated by their contract. This
East-West Base Line would be used to
establish the sections, townships and
ranges across much of the midsection
of the United States and more than 70
percent of the State of Colorado. Land
descriptions today for much of the West
are tied to this early survey.
In 1859, U.S. Deputy Surveyors
Jarrett Todd and James Withrow reached
what is now Colorado and continued
into the rugged, remote wilderness of
the high Rockies until they reached
the point where they thought the 40th
parallel crossed the summit of the Rocky
Mountains. They inscribed a cross on a
rock face at the top of the steep ridge, as
described in their field notes, declaring
it the “Summit of the Rockies,” chiseling
“Utah” on the west face.
Eight years later it was discovered that
this cross at the “Summit of the Rockies”
was one ridge line east of the actual
Continental Divide. The intersection
of the Base Line with the Continental
Divide was monumented in 1867 by
United States Deputy Surveyor George
Hill, who diplomatically declared it the
“Proper Summit of the Rocky Mountains.”
The act of “pushing” a straight line
through rough terrain is a difficult
task. The original surveyors who were
charged with monumenting this line
must have perceived the task as nearly
impossible once they reached what is
now known as Colorado’s Front Range,
yet they persevered. Somehow the early
teams traversed up or around mountain
peaks, valleys and sheer cliffs to set each
section and quarter corner. They would
have had to take readings on Polaris
on every clear night in order to stay on
the Base Line, camping out for weeks
Displayed with permission • The American Surveyor • July/August • Copyright 2007 Cheves Media • www.TheAmericanSurveyor.com
Quad map indicates respective locations
of various reference points.
“Proper Summit” reference marker
at a time and carrying their food or
hunting for it (ll this while doing precise
mathematical calculations and staying
on line). And now, 150 years later, teams
of modern surveyors retraced a few of
their footsteps to search for these historic
monuments.
Throughout 2006, trudging through
spring snow pack, summer thunderstorms and early fall blizzards, two teams
of surveyors began by making multiple
climbs to retrace and remonument the
original Base Line dividing the Kansas
and Nebraska territories in what is now
Colorado. The notes taken in the field
by the original surveyors in 1859 and
1867, obtained from the Bureau of Land
Management in Denver, were used to
locate the original points.
The first team of surveyors included
Doyle and Justin Abrahamson and
Geoff Stephenson, who made several
preliminary climbs in the spring to locate
monuments along the 40th parallel on
both the east and west sides of the divide.
These locations were necessary to lay
the groundwork for the discovery of the
“Summit of the Rockies” cross set in 1859.
In July of 2006, Jerry Penry led a team
of surveyors from Nebraska, Kansas and
Colorado, along with a geologist from the
U.S. Geological Survey, to successfully
find the lichen-covered cross inscribed in
a stone face, marking the most westerly
monument set on September 10, 1859
by Todd and Withrow (See Jerry Penry’s
article “Rocky Mountain High,” in the
December 2006 issue).
In late July I was part of another team
– made up of current and past presidents
of the Professional Land Surveyors of
Colorado, a member of the State Board of
Licensure, and several county surveyors
– that made the arduous climb to search
for the point on the Divide set by Hill in
1867. Using modern handheld Global
Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS)
devices, the team was able to approximate
the location of Hill’s monument on a
treacherous ridgeline. Climbing above the
tree line to more than eleven thousand
feet in elevation, the team was in search
of controlling evidence of the Hill monument, which was described as a granite
stone, 22” by 10” by 5”, in a mound of
stones. If, as expected, they had recovered
this monument marking the southeast
corner of Section 32, Township 1 North,
Range 74 West of the 6th Principal
Meridian, they would have drafted a
monument record to memorialize and
complete the parallel of latitude at the
“Proper Summit of the Rockies.” But it
was not to be.
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The early surveyors used natural
features where available as reference
points and built cairns (rocks piled up
as a landmark) to mark points that were
then described in their field notes and
survey reports. It is a generally accepted
legal principle that an undisturbed,
original monument takes precedence
over other location techniques, including
GNSS calculations, which is why the
locations of Hill’s cairns were so important. But the cairn on the Continental
Divide was nowhere to be found.
Perhaps it had been thrown by hikers
over the steep easterly face of the divide
into an unnamed lake below. So, the
group was determined to use the original
field notes and the traditional methods
of measurement and topographic calls to
locate other monuments to the west that
were described and to remonument Hill’s
original “Proper Summit of the Rockies.”
In early August, my daughter
Heather Robinson and I were part of a
team of surveyors that included Doyle
Abrahamson, Zack Gowan, Warren
Ward, Sam Knight and Chris Trevillian.
We began our quest for the nearest
monument on the Base Line immediately west of the lost Hill position. If it
was still extant, it would be found on
an impossibly steep mountain slope
of stony, dry earth over 800 vertical
feet directly below the divide, where
each step requires extra effort to keep
from sliding and falling. After repeated
readings of the original notes and
descriptions from the 1867 survey, with
special attention to calls and references
in the notes to topographic features and
bearing trees, our search group was
eventually able to solve the puzzle and
successfully locate the original quartersection corner monument.
We began by trying to find a vertically
set stone etched as described in the field
notes. Finding this vertically set stone,
indistinguishable from the countless other
rocks on the slope, required careful attention to the historic rules and procedures
of the land surveyor.
Beginning well before sunrise, we hiked
up a narrow game trail following a stream
bed through upland forest. After several
hours of hiking, our hand-held GNSS
units indicated that we had arrived in
the general vicinity of the quarter section
corner. Fanning out, we began a thorough
inspection of the side of the mountain,
moving steadily uphill on the steep talus
slopes while scanning for likely-looking
vertical stones.
View from the summit ridge looking east toward the ridge where
the original 1859 cross was set.
JB and Doyle set one of the reference markers for the
“Proper Summit of the Rocky Mountains”.
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Most of the day passed with no sign
of the corner. Doyle calculated both a
line and two possible positions for the
corner, one based on measured distances
from the 1867 notes, and one based on
topographic calls. Somewhere between
these two possible positions is where we
believed would be the best area to search
for the stone.
Heading back down to the creek in the
middle of the valley, Doyle flagged an
inter-visible line at several points along
the Base Line. Returning up the slope,
he identified one possible location, and
we began to search every stone and tree
and stump in the vicinity. We attempted
to visualize where the two bearing trees
called out in the original notes could have
been. As the day grew short, and facing a
five-mile hike back to the trucks, the other
team members began to set reference
markers that might be of use later, in
case we came up empty on this climb. As
GNSS data was collected, Doyle headed
toward another alternate position. That’s
when we heard the words, “Gentlemen, I
think you may be in the wrong place…”
Doyle, who had been with the group
of surveyors that earlier discovered the
inscribed cross from the 1859 survey to
the east, had now discovered a pile of
stones that had possibly been erected by
humans. On the top of the center stone
was an etching like a cross, or possibly
even a “4” cut into the surface. Upon
examination, the stone appeared that it
might have been set upright by the use of
four small supporting stones. The team
was excited by the possibility that the
original stone had been found. However,
to prove it we needed to find additional
evidence, such as the bearing trees called
out in the original 1867 notes. The notes
called for a 25” diameter spruce tree and
a 30” diameter spruce tree. There were
no such trees anywhere. None of the trees
was bigger than a few inches in diameter.
Could there have been such massive trees
140 years ago at this elevation near the
bottom of the barren moraine? There was
no particular evidence of logging. Was
the climate so different then that trees that
large could have grown on such a steep
slope? There was no way to know for
sure.
We got out the compass and cloth tape
and took a bearing from that small pile
of rocks, then traversed South 20 degrees
West a distance of 33 links (22’) where
the described tree should have been.
There was nothing but brush, patches of
tundra plants and loose rubble. Then we
reached down and moved some debris
from the spot where the notes called for a
bearing tree, and there was a large rotted
stump! The excitement of our exhausted
team was growing.
Then we sighted North 35 degrees
East and measured 94 links (62’) per the
original notes. Measuring through a small
The summit crew on the Continental Divide points eastward to the ridge where the
original 1859 cross was set.
tree and ending at a sheer cliff 20 to 30
feet high, it also seemed like an unlikely
location for a large tree. We moved the
surface debris and found another huge,
rotted stump exactly where the notes
said it would be! There could now be no
doubt that the team had found George
Hill’s 1867 stone, set in its original,
undisturbed position. The irrefutable
evidence, after more than a century of
avalanches, possible fires and violent
weather, was revealed . . . a handshake
with the past.
Our team then had to set new reference ties, get GNSS coordinates on the
stone and the stumps, write up and sign
the field notes, and take some pictures.
For the first time we took a moment to
appreciate the setting, standing on a steep
slope perhaps 500 feet above the valley
floor. The original surveyor, George Hill,
actually traversed this impossible slope
and set these corners 140 years ago. The
miraculous discovery of this monument
was the last piece required to accurately
reestablish the historic “Proper Summit of
the Rockies.”
So in September of 2006, using the
positions of the cross and the vertical
stone, our team made the arduous climb
to the Continental Divide once more to
reestablish the point described in the original notes as the “Proper Summit of the
Rocky Mountains.” Several 3½” brass cap
reference monuments were set in rocks
near the summit point as accessories to
the corner, permanently cemented in place
with concrete. Then the actual summit
point was similarly set and stamped, “The
Professional Land Surveyors of the State
of Colorado, Inc.”, and thus memorialized
for at least the next 140 years.
The teams believe that surveyors of the
past would have been pleased that their
traditions and calculations were honored in
the modern-day recovery of these positions.
These positions that were so important to
the establishment of the western territories
remain critical points of reference for
modern mapping. Somewhere, George Hill
must be smiling.
John Guyton is the principal surveyor
and majority owner of Flatirons, Inc. in
Boulder, Colorado, and has been in the
surveying profession since 1969. He is
the current President of the Professional
Land Surveyors of Colorado, and is a
Colorado Representative in the Western
Federation of Professional Surveyors.
He is licensed in Colorado, Wyoming,
Arizona, California and Nevada.
Displayed with permission • The American Surveyor • July/August • Copyright 2007 Cheves Media • www.TheAmericanSurveyor.com