On day 4 of our road trip my dad and I got up early and drove to Panorama Point in Nebraska.  I took a screen shot of the directions from summitpost.org because I knew this highpoint was in the middle of a field so I wasn’t sure how much cell reception I would have.  The instructions from that web site were perfect and took us right to the highpoint.

From I-80 in NE:

-Take Exit 8, just East of the WY-NE border
-Go S on CR 17 for 10.0 miles until dead-end
-Turn W (R) on CR 8 and continue for 4.2 miles
-Turn S (L) on CR 9 and continue for 1.0 miles
-Turn W (R) on CR 6 and continue for 2.0 miles
-Turn S (L) on CR 5 and continue for 2.0 miles
-Turn W (R) on dirt road with sign, cross double cattle guard (for bison!) and continue for 1.0 miles to a bend to the right (NNW), and continue0.2 miles to the highpoint marker

The road heading back is not paved – expect gravel and stones.  You could hear the constant “PING” of them hitting the car and an occasional “KLUNK” of a larger rock.  I was holding my breath the whole time – especially near the end where there were a few ruts in the road, making it tricky to drive, but we made it!

This is on private property and the owners ask for a $3 per person donation to visit the summit.  There are envelopes and a donation box right at the start of the lane.  The owners ask you to not hike down the lane because of Bison on the property (note the strips you have to drive over which Bison will not cross.)

We were hoping to see some Bison up close, but they were pretty far off in the distance from the summit.  The view was nice at the top and there is a register to sign and a stone marker (that I think sort of looks like a tomb stone –  LOL)  We were surprised to see a few people had already visited that day and a few more were on their way in as we left.

trying to get a pic of the Bison

pretty flower at the top

This is a very easy to obtain highpoint – as long as you don’t mind the long drive to get to it!  🙂

On the drive out we saw this awesome bird – maybe some kind of hawk?  It would stop on a pole and I’d try to snap it’s picture, but just as I would line up the camera, it would fly to the next pole – it did this about 4 times before I finally got a 1/2 decent picture of it!  LOL

most pics looked like this

FINALLY!

Next stop – RAPID CITY, SD!!  🙂