To be honest, I know nothing of summitposts founders or history, except what I have read here.

But thanks to you guys for starting this. I don't know of any other website that is quite as comprehensive, authoritative and focused as summitpost. It is truly a treasure for all of us.

And thanks to everyone who contributes to the best mountaineering resource on the Internet.

Fred Spicker wrote:The founder of SP <a href="http://www.summitpost.org/mountains/user_link.pl/user_id/2">Josh</a> and his cohort <a href="http://www.summitpost.org/mountains/user_link.pl/user_id/3">Ryle</a>

Though interestingly, <a href="http://www.summitpost.org/mountains/user_link.pl/user_id/1">user #1</a> is more famous. Registered on 9 March 2001.

The first mountain added (id 1) <a href="http://www.summitpost.org/show/mountain_link.pl/mountain_id/1">Baboquivari Peak</a> The dates on the photos indicate that the peak was added on 9 March 2001.

You can go way back into the threads on the General and Site Feedback boards for a lot of history and interesting reading.

Perhaps one of the really "old timers" will write a history of the site someday.

is this a joke . . . when I click on "user#1" . . . it takes me to my profile page? ( don't know diddle about this computer thing) . . . happy to be #1 in my own little world, but odd.

butitsadryheat wrote:Does anyone have the links to the 3 part series of the History of SP that Aaron wrote? I can't find it

Here's the link to the first one, and that has links to the others: http://www.summitpost.org/article/188606/SummitPost-org.html

Get yourself a good beer or two and sit down to read them. Very interesting stuff, especially, dare I say it, the PnP story.

I found SP after a family trip to Kirwin (http://www.summitpost.org/area/range/243540/kirwin.html) in July of 2008; I had never hiked before and was inspired to get out on top of those amazing peaks. After googling Kirwin, I found Bob's excellent page, climbed Mount Crosby a couple of weeks later, joined SP, and have been obsessed with mountains (and the site) ever since...

I found SP when looking for beta on Cloud Peak, and found it. Ironically, I didn't manage to get to the Bighorns that summer (or next). Soon . . . .

I remember first looking at this site when I was looking for info on some peaks on this site in New Hampshire. I remember looking at the site and realizing that there were very few East Coast peaks represented on the site. Then I saw that you could contribute peaks to the website and that their was a point system. Most of the peaks on the site were larger peaks so I didn't know about entering any East Coast peaks but I decided to give it a chance. I thought the name EastKing would be a good name for me, because I was going going to show the world all the mountains on the East Coast. I liked hiking but wasn't really all that interested in going much further. So I put up a couple of pages and all of the sudden I was in the top 100 as well as the top person in my state of New Hampshire. I really never left that board since, staying on the top 2 pages since 2002.

That being said, SP played a large role in developing me into being more of a mountaineer. When I began I was only interested in New England peaks. I viewed West Coast peaks as dangerous impossibilities and thought that I would never thought in my wildest dreams that I would find myself standing on Rainier and saving up for MUCH bigger. It was SP that ultimately lead me to move to the West Coast. Looking at all of Paul Klenke's amazing Washington State pages made me often think about all the west coast mountains. All those amazing photos caught my attention and I had to at least take a look at what was out there.

One visit to Seattle and I had to move. It was the best move I ever made. Right now I am extremely addicted to mountains, and despite working two jobs and 80 hours a week I try to make time to attempt one to two summits a week. Thankfully now they are not just the smaller ones like back east. I have met many awesome SPer's throughout the years and partially because of SP I have a relatively large group of friends that I consistantly climb with. As I look forward to much larger in the next four years, I have to give thanks to SP for making peaks that looked like impossiblities become reality. I know this site played a huge role in influencing me to up my game for the higher summits and as even higher summits fall in the near future I will continue to be thankful for this site.

rlshattuck wrote:is this a joke . . . when I click on "user#1" . . . it takes me to my profile page? ( don't know diddle about this computer thing) . . . happy to be #1 in my own little world, but odd.

All the links in that post were messed up - I think because it is so old. I tried to fix it and things got even more strange. The first person to register was Josh - you can sort people by registration date... I honestly don't remember why I thought someone more famous registered first - could be something that has since been deleted.

This is a great thread to have been ressurected!

Guyzo:

So Aaron....... what went wrong?

Guy Keesee

Gary Schenk:

PnP apparently.

Yep. I was against PnP from Day One. Although I was not the one to bring the hammer down on the last nail of the coffin, and though the PnP regulars will always disagree and want my head on a platter, I was at first unsure about the decision, but I'm glad now.

After finishing the 3 part series about SP's history, I figured it would be a quaint thing to have on SP for "light reading" in the far future. I had no idea how significant it would become to SP and its members. I see and get an increasing number of inquiries about the articles.

GEM Trail:

To be honest, I know nothing of summitposts founders or history, except what I have read here.

But thanks to you guys for starting this. I don't know of any other website that is quite as comprehensive, authoritative and focused as summitpost. It is truly a treasure for all of us.

And thanks to everyone who contributes to the best mountaineering resource on the Internet.

Musicman:

I found SP after a family trip to Kirwin (http://www.summitpost.org/area/range/243540/kirwin.html) in July of 2008; I had never hiked before and was inspired to get out on top of those amazing peaks. After googling Kirwin, I found Bob's excellent page, climbed Mount Crosby a couple of weeks later, joined SP, and have been obsessed with mountains (and the site) ever since...

EastKing:

I remember first looking at this site when I was looking for info on some peaks on this site in New Hampshire. I remember looking at the site and realizing that there were very few East Coast peaks represented on the site. Then I saw that you could contribute peaks to the website and that their was a point system. Most of the peaks on the site were larger peaks so I didn't know about entering any East Coast peaks but I decided to give it a chance. I thought the name EastKing would be a good name for me, because I was going going to show the world all the mountains on the East Coast. I liked hiking but wasn't really all that interested in going much further. So I put up a couple of pages and all of the sudden I was in the top 100 as well as the top person in my state of New Hampshire. I really never left that board since, staying on the top 2 pages since 2002.

That being said, SP played a large role in developing me into being more of a mountaineer. When I began I was only interested in New England peaks. I viewed West Coast peaks as dangerous impossibilities and thought that I would never thought in my wildest dreams that I would find myself standing on Rainier and saving up for MUCH bigger. It was SP that ultimately lead me to move to the West Coast. Looking at all of Paul Klenke's amazing Washington State pages made me often think about all the west coast mountains. All those amazing photos caught my attention and I had to at least take a look at what was out there.

One visit to Seattle and I had to move. It was the best move I ever made. Right now I am extremely addicted to mountains, and despite working two jobs and 80 hours a week I try to make time to attempt one to two summits a week. Thankfully now they are not just the smaller ones like back east. I have met many awesome SPer's throughout the years and partially because of SP I have a relatively large group of friends that I consistantly climb with. As I look forward to much larger in the next four years, I have to give thanks to SP for making peaks that looked like impossiblities become reality. I know this site played a huge role in influencing me to up my game for the higher summits and as even higher summits fall in the near future I will continue to be thankful for this site.

What great stories!

THIS is the reason for SP's past and ongoing success! There are countless stories of people meeting and becoming friends because of SP, and it will continue. What a great legacy for a web site to have! No wonder folks continue to almost shout that SP is the greatest mountaineering/hiking/outdoor site on the internet!

Some will claim that PnP had a role in this success, and I would agree with that sentiment to a point. SP started on this successful formula though long before PnP, and it continues strong as ever now.

--New pages added daily
--6 members and 20 guests active right now (8:45 on a Saturday morning, when it's slow because folks are out doing stuff)
--Over 47,000(!) members and adding--every time I visit the Home Page to check out pages on display, I see new members
--Enthusiasm from members old and new continues to amaze me through PM messages and postings in the forum (SP seems old to me because I've been around so long)
--6058 trip reports--WOW!
--316 Articles
--9902 Mountain and Rock Pages
--10146 routes (nice!)
--1071 Areas/Ranges
--277 Canyons
--3873 Albums and 508624 (gasp) images

And...THE GATHERINGS
As long time member and great friend (whom I met through SP) Alan Ellis says, "...SP is about the people." And good people at that.

In spite of whatever has gone wrong over the years, and some of that can certainly be blamed on me (and most of it is, and that's okay), SummitPost is an outstanding success. There's no getting around it. And it's because of the people, as Alan says.

Congratulations everyone and thanks as well, for making SP the great web site it is today!

EDIT/ADDITION: Incidentally, SummitPost and I "arrived" on the same day. March 19th, same birthday as Patrick McGoohan, too (Secret Agent Man and The Prisoner). A touch of fate, perhaps?