Midwestern Wilderness High Points

Showing Derek Loranger's first ascent dates for climbed peaks

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List Description

Wilderness areas are large tracts of land where resource extraction, roads, structures, and motors of any kind are forbidden. The only intrusion of man permitted is foot travel and low-impact camping. They represent the last sanctuaries of the primeval world left in our developed country, and most of them are in the high mountains.

This list shows the highest points in federally designated Wilderness Areas in the Midwestern states. Many of these wildernesses are small in size and located in wildlife refuges far from any real mountains, or on small islands in the Great Lakes. But they still offer oases from the human-managed landscape that covers most of country's heartland.

Note that the boundaries of many Wilderness Areas are indistinct and not always shown accurately on topographic maps. In addition, many Wilderness high points are "liners" or "slope points" located where a boundary is excluding a summit area that has road or tower development. So finding the exact point for many of these summits may be difficult, and being sure of reaching them may require independent research. In some cases, where a wilderness boundary came very close to a prominent undeveloped summit, that summit is assumed to be the wilderness high point even if the official boundary may be a few feet away.