Groundhog Day Highpointing--Rookie Level

Bored on Groundhog Day

Upon my initial enrollment in Summitpost, I discovered highpointing. I figured I had to start somewhere, right? So I woke up on Groundhog's Day, and having not seen my shadow upon venturing outside, I decided to embark on a journey with my co-pilot and part-time navigator, my 9 1/2 year old weimaraner, Maddie. My trip was made immeasurably easier by the work of SP'er hgrapid and his page on Campbell Hill in Ohio as well as Hoosier Hill in Indiana. His initial work on these pages made my highpointing trip a piece of cake (as if they weren't easy to begin with), and he should be thanked properly.

Highpoints 1 & 2

So at 9:30 Eastern, dog and I headed east on I-70 out of Indianapolis. I discovered that it might have been a good idea to exercise the dog prior to our leaving, b/c I was left with a super-hyper teammate for 6 out of the 7 total hours on our trip. Maddie and I have come to an agreement that all car rides need to be kept to less than an hour from now on, as I'm still trying to clean out all the hair, slobber, and who knows what else out of my car.

After roughly 3 1/2 hours from Indy, we arrived in Bellefontaine, OH, and a short trip up the community college drive had us at the roof of Ohio. Maddie promptly marked her territory at the highpoint (pics not necessary), and I set up the camera to take our obligatory summit-victory shot.


It was frigidly cold that day, in the 20s as a high, and we dove back in the car to head back for Hoosier Hill.

The road off I-70 heading to Hoosier Hill should be mentioned, as it's a bit of a roller-coaster road for a few miles, which was a lot of fun. Your stomach jumps into your chest a few times, and on one particular "bump", I managed to lift Maddie into the air a bit (which is no easy feat, as she's rougly 95 lbs). Hgrapid's directions were spot on, and we managed to slog through the roughly 10 feet of mud to bag our second highpoint of the day (and my lifetime).

The beginning of an obsession

I know these 2 highpoints are laughable to most of the users of the site, but having just discovered climbing/hiking/mountaineering a few months ago from my first trips to Cascades NP and Rocky Mountain NP, it was a tremendous feeling, and I'm now planning trips to climb the highpoints of the NE, as well as Guadalupe Peak in TX, and Mt Elbert in CO (hopefully all this year).

Maddie has decided IN & OH will be her final highpoints, which is probably for the best for both of us. I'll regale her with my climbing feats when we return from future endeavours, and I'm sure she'll enjoy that.

Images

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