OTHER Trip Report 07/27/2026

Report Type	Mini
Peak(s)	Mount Arvon 1,979 ft
Date Posted	07/27/2026
Date Climbed	06/06/2026
Author	rob runkle

Highpoint of Michigan
When planning our Spring 2025 marathon trip, I wanted to try to get my last remaining easy state highpoint, Mt Arvon, Michigan. The biggest challenge of Mt Arvon, is that it is located in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, which is far away from just about everything. I chose the Maritime Marathon in Manitowoc, Wisconsin for me, Nolan (my son) and Garrett (Our neighbor). We left the house around 3 pm on Friday afternoon. Our plan was to get to St Ignace, Michigan just over the Mackinaw Bridge. We arrived at the hotel around 11 pm. We got up at 8 am, and started driving towards Mt. Arvon. The drive through the Upper Peninsula was beautiful. About 15 miles out from the high point, the road turned to dirt road. It was tough dirt road, but you just needed reasonably high clearance to make it pretty easy. The dirt road driving was slow. We arrived at the trailhead at 12:30 pm, and started hike/running immediately. The mosquitoes would attack us, if we weren’t moving. It took us about 30 minutes to get to the summit, 2 miles and 540 ft of gain. The summit is definitely drivable, but I wanted to get at least some amount of hiking. At the summit were some apparent Michigan Wolverine fans. Garrett chose to wear an Ohio State shirt for the hike, and they were not impressed with his clothing choice. The mosquitoes were not quite as bad at the summit as they were at the trailhead. But they were bad enough that we didn’t want to stay at the summit long. We started run/hiking back down after a few minutes, and some pictures. The descent took us another 30 minutes, roundtrip 1 hour, 4 miles. After finishing the hike, we drove the tough drive out, and made it to Manitowoc, WI around 7:30 pm. We got us the next morning, and ran the Maritime Marathon. It was a beautiful out and back course, along the Lake Michigan the whole way. I finished in 6:07, Garrett and Nolan finished together in 4:29. After the marathon, we got back in the car, and made the 9 hour drive hour, arriving home around 11 pm, Sunday night. This would be my 47th state highpoint, leaving only Gannett Peak, Mt Hood and Denali remaining. Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow):

Highpoint of Michigan

When planning our Spring 2025 marathon trip, I wanted to try to get my last remaining easy state highpoint, Mt Arvon, Michigan. The biggest challenge of Mt Arvon, is that it is located in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, which is far away from just about everything. I chose the Maritime Marathon in Manitowoc, Wisconsin for me, Nolan (my son) and Garrett (Our neighbor).

We left the house around 3 pm on Friday afternoon. Our plan was to get to St Ignace, Michigan just over the Mackinaw Bridge. We arrived at the hotel around 11 pm. We got up at 8 am, and started driving towards Mt. Arvon. The drive through the Upper Peninsula was beautiful. About 15 miles out from the high point, the road turned to dirt road. It was tough dirt road, but you just needed reasonably high clearance to make it pretty easy. The dirt road driving was slow.

We arrived at the trailhead at 12:30 pm, and started hike/running immediately. The mosquitoes would attack us, if we weren’t moving. It took us about 30 minutes to get to the summit, 2 miles and 540 ft of gain. The summit is definitely drivable, but I wanted to get at least some amount of hiking. At the summit were some apparent Michigan Wolverine fans. Garrett chose to wear an Ohio State shirt for the hike, and they were not impressed with his clothing choice.

The mosquitoes were not quite as bad at the summit as they were at the trailhead. But they were bad enough that we didn’t want to stay at the summit long. We started run/hiking back down after a few minutes, and some pictures. The descent took us another 30 minutes, roundtrip 1 hour, 4 miles.

After finishing the hike, we drove the tough drive out, and made it to Manitowoc, WI around 7:30 pm. We got us the next morning, and ran the Maritime Marathon. It was a beautiful out and back course, along the Lake Michigan the whole way. I finished in 6:07, Garrett and Nolan finished together in 4:29.

After the marathon, we got back in the car, and made the 9 hour drive hour, arriving home around 11 pm, Sunday night. This would be my 47th state highpoint, leaving only Gannett Peak, Mt Hood and Denali remaining.

Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow):

Comments or Questions

wineguy	What about Curwood 7/28/2026 4:09pm I recall someone saying that LIDAR re-established Curwood as the highpoint. Has this controversy been resolved?
9patrickmurphy	Correct 7/29/2026 2:44pm Curwood is the highpoint according to Lists of John, generally considered to be the definitive source of information for post-lidar elevations. In the notes of the Mount Arvon page, dGPS found Curwood to be 0.4 ft higher, and Curwood is significantly more prominent.
RichH	Curwood 8/2/2026 11:36am Personally I don't know if 5" is enough to justify a change. What happens when someone drops a large boulder or load of rocks on Arvon? Maybe the prominence is a better justification for Curwood.
Ssgustafson	Curwood 8/2/2026 7:43pm Yes, Curwood is the new highpoint of MI. See the following for the details: https://www.countryhighpoints.com/michigan-new-state-highpoint-mt-curwood/ I was there in June and Curwood is a little more challenging to get to than Arvon, which I also tagged, but any AWD SUV will get you there.

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