PILOT 2 (MO1246) - Albany County, Wyoming - U.S. Benchmarks on Waymarking.com

The summit area of Pilot Hill is made up of the westward-dipping limestone of the Pennsylvanian-Permian Casper Formation, and is the highest point along the north-south ridge made up of the same limestone that runs for many miles along this portion of the Laramie Mountains. The summit, which was once private property, is now managed by the nonprofit Pilot Hill, Inc., in partnership with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. At the time of this waymark's posting, the summit is publicly accessible from two trailheads on the eastern side of Laramie and via National Forest access to the south on the Pole Mountain Unit of Medicine Bow National Forest. Please visit the website for the Pilot Hill Recreation Area and Pilot Hill Wildlife Habitat Management Area for more information on public access points and useful maps:

(visit link)

The benchmark on top of Pilot Hill has its own interesting survey record, which I will describe as best as I can here:

The USGS mark on the summit, designated "PILOT 2," is the replacement for an earlier USGS benchmark designated "PILOT." I am not sure when the original PILOT benchmark was set - there is no benchmark indicated on the summit of Pilot Hill in the earliest publicly available map of the area from 1905, and the next topo map is from 1948, the year after PILOT 2 was monumented. When PILOT 2 was monumented in 1947, the USGS established two reference marks, stamped "PILOT NO 2 NO 1" and "PILOT NO 2 NO 2." The following year, in 1948, the U.S. Coast & Geodetic Survey recovered PILOT 2 and established two of their own marks. These included a reference mark stamped "PILOT NO 1" (located very close to the USGS's PILOT NO 2 NO 2 reference mark) and an azimuth mark stamped "PILOT" about 1.25 miles to the south-southeast. I was able to recover all 5 of the aforementioned marks (the main USGS benchmark, three reference marks, and the azimuth mark) and have posted them all as separate waymarks.

The central benchmark itself, PILOT 2, is set near the center of a flat slab of limestone on the top of Pilot Hill.

Condition: Mark found in good condition Designation: PILOT NO 2 Benchmark Agency: U.S. Geological Survey Monumentation type: BENCH MARK (or B.M.) Disk County: Albany USGS 7.5' Topographic Quadrangle Name (optional): Pilot Hill Find type: Coordinates and/or to-reach information from the NGS database (or Geocaching's copy of it) were used Web address of this benchmark's datasheet (optional): [Web Link] NGS PID: MO1246 Benchmark Agency (if other): Not listed Monumentation type (if other): Not listed Special category (optional): Not listed Special Category (if other): Not listed Local database's URL (optional): Not listed

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