For Minnesota's Nobel Prizewinning novelist Sinclair Lewis, Inspiration Peak fully lived up to its name. From its bald top, he wrote, there is to be seen a glorious, 20-mile circle of some 50 lakes scattered among fields and pastures, like sequins fallen on an old Paisley shawl. Praising the enchanting peace and seclusion of the place for contemplation, Lewis also chided Minnesotans for not knowing about their own haunts of beauty and remarked that he might write the governor to ask if he had ever stood on Inspiration Point. The highest point in the Leaf Hills portion of the Alexandria glacial moraine, Inspiration Peak rises some 400 feet above Spitzer Lake. Though off the beaten track and not mentioned in early exploration literature, it has more recently been promoted as a northwestern Minnesota landmark, celebrated chiefly for its views of the bright rolling country around it.