Congratulations and good luck to recent state high pointers!

Allow me to bore you with my own small adventure this summer on one of my typical haphazard vacations.

I drove out to Granite Peak for my second try. Went the Mystic Lake route up the switchbacks. As I approached the higher switchbacks near the end of them I began to run into a lot of hard snow across the trail. I was able to kick steps and cut across the switchbacks for several of the snow blocks, but as I went higher the snow was covering too much of the trail for me to continue at the required pace to make it to Froze-to-Death and beyond. I turned around disappointed because I felt strong, motivated, and prepared to summit that peak solo. I knew full well it was early in the season (second week in June) and that it may very well be snowed in, but I thought I would give it a try because that was when I had time off.

Since I had unforeseen free time before my scheduled Grand Teton bid, I drove down to Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado which I had never seen. I thought I would climb me a 14er and asked about Longs Peak. Took a shot at it but turned around before summiting because I thought it was getting too late in the day for my progress.

Back up to Teton Park. Summited Mount Washburn in Jellystone in a pleasant 3 hour hike as warm up for the Grand. Summited the Grand three days later, a fantastic experience.

Next day, time to drive back to Penna. to move and start a new job. Was approaching Cheyenne, Wyoming and felt irked about not summiting Longs, so I swung south back to Colorado, got a camp site in the dark, slept an hour and a half and took on Longs again, this time plenty early. Got to the summit this time, a great climb with perfect weather. The last 6 miles down the hill some 4000 or so feet was a true death march because I was tired from the Grand Climb and lack of sleep.

I did not get any state high points this summer, but I don't care how many I get. I fit them in when I can.

Back to my beloved Penn's woods for trail running, hiking, contemplation, and rat-race escapes.....

You sure covered a lot of ground! Well done Zodis!

Listening to catamount and others something strikes me about highpointing, and climbing in general.

It's about the journey more than the destination.

If you could fly me in a helicopter to the top of Denali, it would mean very little. But the skill it takes to climb and the way you get there is what it's all about.

My kid and I are dragging this thing out, trying to find other local destinations en route to the high points. Sometimes I think we are stupid to not just climb them all as fast as possible. But you guys remind me that it is about the trip more than the trophy.

Woohoo! Successfully summited Mount Rainier via the DC route at 8:00 AM this morning in some truly nasty conditions. Left high camp at Ingraham Flats at 3:00 AM under starry skies. By the time my IMG group reached 13K, a nasty cold front had moved in and by the time we reached the rim, I was wearing 6 layers, visibility was no more than 20 feet and the wind was ripping at about 50 MPH. Continuing on to Columbia Crest was nowhere in the cards. We spent just enough time on the rim to shoot a few hero shots and then descend quickly through the gale. When we reached a spot of safety at the top of the cleaver, every bit of me was covered in rime ice and we learned of a rescue operation under way at the summit for a man who had ascended the Emmons route and was hypothermic.

Really can't say enough good things about International Mountain Guides. This was my first guided mountain trip and it was lot of fun.

On to Wyoming where I will begin a guided attempt of Gannett with Jackson Hole Mountain Guides on Friday.

Great Job! Good luck in Wyoming.

Alright, I'm on a roll now! Just got back into Dubois, Wyoming after a successful summit of Gannett Peak Sunday morning around 9 AM. The snowbridge across the bergschrund on the Gooseneck was paper thin but it managed to hold all 6 in my group and once at the top of the couloir, we knew we had it in the bag. Once again, I can't say enough good things about Jackson Hole Mountain Guides. Totally different kind of energy than IMG but Gannett is a totally different kind of a mountain.

On to Montana, where I'm hoping to keep my same attitude of enjoying the experience first and foremost with a successful summit bid being the cherry on top.

47 HPs down, 3 to go.

Congrats catamount, which route are you taking for granite? Looking forward to hear more about it! We are heading there via SW couloir in August.

-Alex

Thanks sm0421. My Granite attempt will be another guided bid with Jackson Hole Mountain Guides. We will be heading in via the Froze-to-death plateau approach Saturday and hopefully going for the summit on Monday. Should be an awesome time on the mountain.

Good luck with your upcoming SW couloir attempt. Conditions are pretty good on the mountain from what I understand with little remaining snow, so hopefully that will work in both of our favors.

Best of luck on granite guys, that's one of the highpoints i dream most of. i recently took a month long intro to rock climbing course at NYC rock gym just to get some basics to help with this peak someday. I didn't know there was guides for these two peaks I'll add that to my notes for future possibilities.

I had great time on Cheaha last weekend. Took the short but steep lake trail which I had all to my lonesome. Next on my schedule is Humphrey's in September.

I think you both are going to summit Granite!

Please let us know about SW couloir route as that seems to be underused and easier than Froze to Death Plateau. Would love to hear every detail when you get back!

Cypress and I have a plan to climb Mt. Rogers in Va and possibly Black Mtn. in Ky in about ten days. I am way psyched because that would give us 7 highpoints for the year- our most ever.

Does anyone have suggestions for interesting stuff in these places? We are thinking of some stuff around Big Walker Mtn (hike, lookout tower, general store) but that's all we've got.

It would be awesome to find a Civil War battlefield or maybe a Coal Museum to add local flavor... any ideas would be appreciated!

GEM Trail wrote:Cypress and I have a plan to climb Mt. Rogers in Va and possibly Black Mtn. in Ky in about ten days. I am way psyched because that would give us 7 highpoints for the year- our most ever.

Does anyone have suggestions for interesting stuff in these places? We are thinking of some stuff around Big Walker Mtn (hike, lookout tower, general store) but that's all we've got.

It would be awesome to find a Civil War battlefield or maybe a Coal Museum to add local flavor... any ideas would be appreciated!

My wife and I visited the Hatfield Family Cemetery and the Hatfield Family Museum in Sarah Ann, WV. It was interesting to us since my wife is a direct descendant of the Hatfields! Basketball star Jerry West also grew up very close to that area.

A visit to Seneca Rocks is also very worthwhile. We stayed overnight in cabins near there.

Wow, the Hatfields and the McCoys! Can your girl really hold onto a grudge? Just kidding. That sounds awesome. When I lived in DC I climbed Seneca Rocks and mountain biked all over the area, so I know that place well.

Still want more ideas but thought I would share what I have found so far for other travelers:

There IS a coal museum, in Harlan, 20 miles W of Black Mountain. And there's a neat arts and crafts store in Cumberland, less than 10 miles away. Down the road is the Cumberland Gap NP, by all accounts an underused gem of the park system. Cumberland Gap is a very scenic and historic spot with some unique caves and excellent trails (so I have read). There's a really neat mountaintop ghost town called Hensley. And Big Walker Lookout has views of 5 states.

Even though I haven't made it down to Ky's highpoint, but as a KY native I can recommend some great things to do in the state. I'm not sure which way you intend to head down to the highpoints, but the first and most enjoyable is the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. You visit all of the distilleries and yes they have samples. You need not be 21 to do the tours. The distilleries are mostly in the central area of the state, and the driving scenery is quite lovely as you get to see why they call it the rolling hills of kentucky. If you are looking for some history, head over to Bardstown, KY (near Louisville) which is one of the oldest cities in the state and has the states civil war museum. The architecture there is amazing and there is some good quality cooking as well. Just find any hole in the wall looking place and you can bet the food will be good. If you are heading that way you might as well go a little further to Louisville, KY and do a tour of Churchill Downs, home of the Kentucky Derby (it will change your whole perception when you watch it on TV) and see the Louisville Slugger Factory. Churchill runs tours everyday and every hour or so as I recall, not sure about Slugger anymore. Either way at Louisville Slugger its cool to just see the giant bat outside the building. If these suggests don't work for you, send me a message and let me know what specific areas you will be visiting and I could possible have more suggestions. I live in northern ky near cincinnati and if you want some suggestions for up here i could also provide. Enjoy your trip!

Thats what I did. The day I did the highpoint I visited Wild Turkey, Four Roses, and Woodford Reserve and I can tell you it is a very pretty area of the country then I had lunch in Versailles and made it to highpoint in the afternoon which is not in a pretty area of country and left me sad. Hiked Rogers next day but I didn't find anything to do near VA highpoint so after mountain drove straight to Asheville, NC which is an awesome town especially for a craft beer nut like myself.