Mount Sunflower (Kansas High Point)

April 3, 2022

1231m

Weskan, KS

Mt. Sunflower is not even a pimple on the vast grassland but is the highest point in the state of Kansas, next to the border with Colorado with a mere 6 meters of prominence. It’s literally on someone’s farmlands but because of the high point status, hundreds, if not thousands of people drive to the top of this hill each year. The ascent is nothing fancier than a simple drive-up. The last few miles are on gravel roads but it’s doable in any passenger car. The United States really made their high points “official” judging by the signs directing tourists, myself included, to Mt. Sunflower.

This was the last objective bagged in this 19-day spring break road trip that involved about 11,000 km driving and two flights so I was downright exhausted. Earlier in the day I had already hiked to Oklahoma High Point and then made an additional bag of Two Buttes in SE Colorado. I followed the Google’s direction to drive another hour or two northwards and eventually turned into the state of Kansas. Immediately after turning into Kansas I noticed traffic signs pointing towards Mt. Sunflower so sure enough I could have come here without even having a map. As expected I drove the rental car all the way to the summit, stepped outside the car wearing crocs to take a bunch of photos and that’s it.

The last 12 miles were on gravel roads
There were signs at every junction
I guess this is the summit of Mt. Sunflower… Officially named “peak”…
I guess they need a library on the top of this hill…
I guess I was quite far from Sweden huh…
Me on Mt. Sunflower, highest point in Kansas…
The massive summit register…
Perhaps the easiest state high point even among those drive-ups?

I then turned northwards to join I-70 westbound to head towards Denver. My destination was Golden on the west side of Denver so there were still 3 hours of driving to go. I firstly stopped in Burlington for some wifi and updates, and then in Limon for dinner. I made one additional stop to give the rental car a wash as I wasn’t sure if Fox-rent-a-car would charge me extras for returning an extremely dusty car. I paid 11 dollars to wash the outside but the inside would remain dirty as there’s nothing I could do about that. I then drove westwards across Denver’s urban gong show and made to Arthur’s apartment in Golden at a reasonable hour. Arthur and his roommate were out for the night so I could take a shower and some much-needed rest.

The next morning I had to get up at 4 am and return my rental car at Denver airport no later than 5 am. The return was quite easy and I caught the first shuttle bus to the airport. The flight back to Seattle had no cancelation this time so that was a relief. Once back to Seattle I called the Skyway Inn airport parking to pick me up. Although I ended up one day late they did not charge me extras so I would definitely recommend this spot to park your car. After grabbing my own car I immediately started the northwards drive and eventually got back home by lunch time. The border delay was about 40 minutes. I took about 2 hours of nap and showed up in the afternoon/evening work in time.