Bear Mtn SE – Madison County KY Highpoint

Bear Mountain SE – Madison County KY Highpoint

Surveying Bear Mtn

June 22, 2025, Eric and Keith

Survey Results (NAVD88)

Bear Mtn – 1670.3 ft +/-0.9ft
Bear Mtn SE – 1683.4ft +/-1.7ft
Bear Mtn SE is true Madison County Highpoint

I was home in Kentucky and had my survey equipment, so figured I might as well figure out what is the true highest peak in my home county, Madison County. In the past, people generally assumed it was Bear Mtn, in the southern part of the county. The highest points on the USGS quads are three regions within the 1660ft – 1700ft contours.

The route

Bear Mtn is the northernmost point and has a USGS benchmark on the summit and is the only one that has an official name and the only one directly survey on the quad. So everyone assumed it was the county highpoint. I’ll refer to the other locations as Bear Mtn Central and Bear Mtn SE.

In 2016 LiDAR data was published for the area, which showed Bear Mtn SE was 12.3ft taller than Bear Mtn. Bear Mtn Central was 6.4ft taller than Bear Mtn. It appeared the USGS benchmark was put on the northern peak because it was a better location to survey, not because it was the highest location. Or perhaps the other locations just weren’t surveyed.

LiDAR point cloud data

I’ve found LiDAR point cloud data can be prone to errors if dense brush is misclassified as ground, and all peaks in that area are covered in dense brush. So I wanted to survey with more accurate equipment to be certain. I had two differential GPS units capable of 0.1ft vertical accuracy, a Trimble Promark and Trimble DA2. I had them with me since I stopped off in Nova Scotia on the way home so I could survey which of two candidates is the true highpoint of the province (I discovered the true highpoint is Western Barren, not White Hill which was previously thought to be the highpoint).

My plan was to take one Trimble DA2 dGPS unit with a tripod and survey Bear Mtn and Bear Mtn SE, and take one-hour static survey measuremnts on each to establish whether Bear Mtn SE was indeed the county highpoint. We probably wouldn’t have time to also survey Bear Mtn Central. That would in theory get 0.1ft vertical accuracy in open terrain, but because the summits were in dense trees with leaves on, the accuracy would likely be lower.

Bear Mtn SE

I’d previously climbed Bear Mtn several times. There used to be an ATV trail up it in 2003 that I followed, but that has since been overgrown. In 2023 I biked from home to near the summit and bushwhacked the remaining distance. I also tagged Bear Mtn SE on that trip just to be sure.

This time we drove up Burnt Ridge Road, parked on the side at the highpoint next to a gate on the north side, then started hiking. Interestingly, the old ATV trail has been cleared for the first 500ft, likely in preparation for logging. We followed the overgrown track to the saddle south of the summit, where it mostly disappeared. Then we had some dense bushwachking to reach the summit an hour later.

Bushwhacking out

I located the USGS benchmark and set up the 2.0m antenna rod on a tripod. I logged data for an hour, then we bushwhacked back. I stopped at Bear Mtn SE at the LiDAR-identified highpoint and took another one-hour measurement. This peak is marked by two old beer cans stuck on a small tree.

I then bushwhacked back out. The round trip distance was only 2 miles, but with the bushwhacking and surveying we were out about 4 hours.

I processed the data with TrimbleRTX and found Bear Mtn is 1670.3 ft +/-0.9ft and Bear Mtn SE is 1683.4ft +/-1.7ft. The errors were higher than 0.1ft because of the dense overhead tree cover. Even with these errors, Bear Mtn SE is definitly the higher peak, 13.1ft higher than Bear Mtn. LiDAR data was in error 1-2ft on each summit.

This result means peakbaggers who want to climb the Madison County KY highppoint can just climb Bear Mtn SE, which is only 0.25 miles hike from Burnt Ridge Road with minimal bushwhacking.