High Knob, Illionois

High Knob Mountain (W9/IL-005) is a short drive to the summit and is located in the Shawnee National Forest. The site was created by the Camp Cadiz Civilian Conservation Corpsmen (CCC) and at one time had a fire tower which is no longer present. Instead, several picnic tables and trails leading off the summit are located here. For just under 1,000 feeet the views of the surrounding area actually pretty nice.

Summit Information:

Summit Name: High Knob Mtn, (W9/IL-005

Location: Junction, IL

Latitude/Longitude: 37.6004,-88.3282

Date: January 20th, 2021

Parking: Free

Points: 1

County: Gallatin County

Grid: EM57uo

Weather: Sunny, 35 degrees

Permit: No

Full Trip Planning Guide

Difficulty

Views

Solitude

On a Scale of 1 to 5

As part of my master SOTA plan of activating a SOTA summit in every state that has one, I still lacked a summit in Illinois. Luckily I was doing a 8 day road trip through the south and part of the midwest.

Leaving Hot Springs, AR we stopped in Missouri at Taum Sauak Summit (W0M/SF-001) and then moved on to Illinois at High Knob. On the road up to High Knob is a campground that looked pretty quiet and unused. At the summit was a nice parking lot and views to the east and west. Since the sun was going to set soon, I quickly made contacts on 2, 20 & 40 meters. This was going to be the last summit of the day before heading to Indiana. Considering the cold weather, my wife supervised from the warm car.