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My dog Spanky and I have completed 24 out of 50 summits. Read all about it at http://50summits.blogspot.com - a fairly factual, hopefully humorous and entertaining accounting of our exploits. If you enjoy reading about dog adventures, hiking with your dog, or just plain old funny dog stories, you'll enjoy this.

Spanky and Rein Krevald

Here's my personal high point story.
Seeing as I'm from Rhode Island I'm sure most who have been doing high points for years know about the history of Jerimoth Hill and the difficulty of its "ascent". It always upset me how the guy who owned the property was so backwards that he took the stand that he did. You see my wife also lived on the high point. She grew up and lived in the house that sat directly across the road from the trailhead, you know the one you would park in front of if you went there. The number of people who used to come to her door with disappointment because of the situation was incredible. It wasn't like people needed to cross his front yard to gain access. The trail is off in the woods on the other side of his property. I personally used to go over there numerous times by a little known side trail that was just a bit down the hill but on someone elses property that I was friendly with. If for nothing more than to get some redemption for all those that made the trip with no other intentions other than seeing the marker. Some folks, many with small kids would travel thousands of miles to see it just to get turned away. I know it wasn't my property and who am I to tell someone what they should let go but a little bit of friendly courtesy would have gone a long way towards making allot of people happy. Fortunately those days are over and I congratulate and thank the new owners.

If any of you highpointers get a hankering to expand your territory, here are two useful websites
http://alpenergy.com/highestpeaks.htm
http://www.peakbagger.com/listindx.aspx

I'd like to thank everyone who has contributed to this thread. Hopefully we can keep making it a fun resource for the Summit Post community interested in the state highpoints. Because every time I've climbed a mountain anywhere I've wondered about what higher peaks might be around, what it might be like on an even loftier summit, one at the apex of all available mountains. Plus, as an earlier poster remarked, it has always been vaguely in my plans to see all 50 states, and highpointing is the perfect excuse.

Don't know what Cypress and I are going to do this year. The plan is either to make an epic drive to Colorado and back or to run down and hike the Southeastern highpoints.

I personally am starting to feel an "ethical" dilemma in the South. Many Eastern highpoints have roads going right to the top. And (unlike some highpointers) I see no value in just driving a car to the top of a mountain. And Cypress and I would like to hike up each highpoint from its base. But what if we are running short on time? Would it be worthwhile to drive up a mountain when we are perfectly capable of hiking it?

GEM Trail wrote:I personally am starting to feel an "ethical" dilemma in the South. Many Eastern highpoints have roads going right to the top. And (unlike some highpointers) I see no value in just driving a car to the top of a mountain. And Cypress and I would like to hike up each highpoint from its base. But what if we are running short on time? Would it be worthwhile to drive up a mountain when we are perfectly capable of hiking it?

I've thought a lot about that. Once you start climbing the Western peaks, the Midwestern and some of the Eastern highpoints become somewhat insignificant. Many of the state highpoints are almost perfectly flat. They do not have a perceptable summit per se. Where would you start the climb, from the ocean? I don't feel the least bit of need to hike to a highpoint if it does not hold a challenge. For me, it's enough to just be there and experience the area.

Love the list of alternate highpoints. Hey, has anyone climbed all the European highpoints yet? THAT would be a fun and baddass undertaking! There's about 50 countries, but many many good mountain climbs in there.

Funny what the last poster said about eastern mountains not being mountains. Over the years I've thought about that a lot and figure that if anything rises over 1,000 vertical feet I'm willing to call it a mountain. But what I was talking about was a little different; what's the point of driving your car up a mountain? A nice view? What a way to waste a day of driving!

Anybody climbed with their kid, especially a daughter? Mine's plenty girly and I'm wondering how other people get their kids excited about it and teach em and stuff.

GEM Trail wrote:Love the list of alternate highpoints. Hey, has anyone climbed all the European highpoints yet? THAT would be a fun and baddass undertaking! There's about 50 countries, but many many good mountain climbs in there.

Ginge Fullen has done it. Check out his webpage...I'm also pretty sure he's done all the African countries as well, which is infinitely higher on the badass undertaking scale.

http://www.gingefullen.com/gingefullen.html

All you Highpointers out there, what hikes and or climbs do you have planned for this year? I am hitting Rainier, Hood and Granite.

The only 2 I have planned are Hoosier Hill and Boundary Peak, at opposite ends of the spectrum. I'm constantly looking for opportunities to hit additional HP's during business travel though.

Regarding whether to hike or drive to a highpoint...

I'm up to 35 highpoints (Rainier my biggest one so far), and when i started i also wanted to hike them all. I ran into the same dilemma about what "hiking them all" entailed, since the base of Mt. Sunflower in Kansas isn't exactly discernible. What i ended up with is a self-imposed rule of hiking the majority of the prominence of each highpoint. Prominence, if you don't know it, is the elevation difference between the summit and the "key saddle." The key saddle is the saddle between a summit and the next-highest summit, whether that next-highest summit is a mile away or 5000 miles away.

This was a way of giving more credit, and hiking more, on mountains like Mt. Washington and Mt. Mitchell, while minimizing but still hiking some around places like Hawkeye Point, Iowa. (I had to walk about a half-mile to get the required majority prominence elevation gain for that one.) The only one i haven't really liked was Hoosier Hill, Indiana. That required walking on farm roads for 4 or 5 miles, which i coulda done without.

Anyway, just a thought...nobody has to stick to rules, but if you're looking for a way to decide which ones should get a lot of hiking instead of driving, that's my way. Happy highpointing!

p.s. Hopefully Gannett will be #36 this summer.

All you Highpointers out there, what hikes and or climbs do you have planned for this year? I am hitting Rainier, Hood and Granite.

I had big plans for this summer, but I am four months pregnant , so it looks like the only one I'll do this year is New Jersey, when my husband and I go visit his family in the Scranton PA area.

Wanted to tell Grunt that if she gets her man to NJ there's a pleasant surprise for her. The NJ highpoint is the best family recreation spot of any state highpoint! We went swimming near the top and mountain biked several miles of easy trails in addition to hiking around. PLUS there is a miniature Washington Monument on top (don't ask me why) visible from as far away as the hazy atmosphere permits.

A story about the Rhode Island highpoint. Hate to admit it but we totally "stole" this highpoint! We were driving back from climbing Katahdin and Washington and decided to see it. Once at the closest road access it was obvious we were within 2 or 3 vertical feet of the highpoint sitting in our car. I got a little mad at that point and declared we were NOT making a special trip just to return to this spot. So we drove east a mile to a gas station, parked the car, pulled out the mountain bikes, and pedaled right to the highpoint markers. After we left we found out that the owners have opened up access to more than July 4 and Labor Day weekends- now apparently its every weekend. So that is much easier to work with, and in fact we were there I think on the weekend, so I guess we didn't break any laws.

Still hope to take Cypress out west this summer for a few Colorado climbs, but just like we climbers have access issues with some mountains I have acess issues with my daughter...