Steven Tursi's highpointing adventures: States' highest point count: 30

Steven Tursi's highpointing Adventures
I have been to the highest point in 30 states

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Northeast Region	Southeast Region	Midwest Region	West Region
Connecticut: Longacre Point, 2380' 2004/10/30	Alabama: Cheaha Mtn, 2405' 2007/03/22	Illinois: Charles Mound, 1235' 2005/07/02	Alaska: Mt. McKinley, 20,320'
Delaware: Elbright Azimuth, 448' 2004/05/08	Arkansas: Magazine Mtn, 2753' 2004/06/16	Indiana: Hoosier High Point, 1257' 2005/07/02	Arizona: Humphreys Pk, 12,633' 2007/05/17
Maine: Mt. Katahdin, 5267'	Florida: Britton Hill, 345' 2004/06/20	Iowa: Hawkeye Pt, 1670'	California: Mt. Whitney, 14,494'
Maryland: Backbone Mtn, 3360' 2004/07/31	Georgia: Brasstown Bald, 4784' 2004/11/05	Kansas: Mt. Sunflower, 4039' 2007/03/24	Colorado: Mt. Elbert, 14,433'
Massachusetts: Mt. Greylock, 3491' 2004/07/07	Kentucky: Black Mtn, 4139' 2004/11/05	Michigan: Mt. Arvon, 1979' 2005/07/03	Hawaii: Mauna Kea, 13,796'
New Hampshire: Mt. Washington, 6288' 2006/08/26	Louisiana: Driskill Mtn, 535' 2004/06/20	Minnesota: Eagle Mtn, 2301'	Idaho: Borah Pk, 12,662'
New Jersey: Highpoint, 1803' 2004/05/02	Mississippi: Woodall Mtn, 806' 2004/06/16	Missouri: Tom Sauk, 1772'	Montana: Granite Pk, 12,799'
New York: Mt. Marcy, 5344'	North Carolina: Mt. Mitchell, 6684' 2004/06/21	Nebraska: Panorama Pt, 5424' 2008/08/22	New Mexico: Wheeler Pk, 13,161'
Pennsylvania: Mt. Davis, 3213' 2004/07/31	Oklahoma: Black Mesa, 4973' 2007/03/24	North Dakota: White Butte, 3506'	Oregon: Mt. Hood, 11,239'
Rhode Island: Jerimoth Hill, 812' 2004/05/30	South Carolina: Sassafras Mtn, 3560' 2004/11/05	Ohio: Campbell Hill, 1549' 2005/07/02	Nevada: Boundary Pk, 13,140'
Vermont: Mt. Mansfield, 4393' 2006/07/30	Tennessee: Clingman's Dome, 6643' 2004/06/21	South Dakota: Harney Pk, 7242' 2008/08/23	Utah: Kings Pk, 13,528'
West Virginia: Spruce Knob, 4861' 2004/07/31	Texas: Guadalupe Pk, 8749'	Wisconsin: Timms Hill, 1951' 2005/07/02	Washington: Mt. Rainier, 14,410'
	Virginia: Mt. Rogers, 5729'		Wyoming: Gannet Pk, 13,804'

If you're looking for waypoint data files of the state highpoints, Click Here.

New Jersey (Highpoint, 1803', very short walk)

5/2/2004 #1
Pictures

Was driving home from church in the city and was with my wife and 3-month old. We didn't want to go home so we decided to go for a drive and ended up at the NJ highpoint. When we got to the monument, the baby was crying so my wife opted to stay in the car and feed him while I went up to the monument. There was a fence surrounding the monument - this initially confused me because while I knew that access to the inside of the monument had been cut off for years, the platform itself, which has the USGS marker, was open to the public. Apparently this is no longer the case - a fence surrounded the entire entrance to the monument. I walked around the backside of it, saw a short section of the wall, and decided to just climb it. I wanted to touch the USGS marker. I figured that if I were caught, the ranger would hopefully give me a stern warning and send me on my way. I had a 3-month old in the car - that was to be my trump card. All this time I was the only person there, so when I walked around to the front, inside the fence, about 5 people were standing outside the fence - pretty scary. They were clearly all tourists and nobody in authority was there, but just the same, I was going to ditch the place in case one of them decided to be a "good samaritan" and report me, the criminal trespasser. But before I could, one of them asked me to read something off the plaque - he wanted to know the elevation. So I told him and hightailed it out of there. The way out was a lot easier than the way in - the end of the fence wasn't secured to anything so I just pushed it aside and walked the 3 feet between it and the wall.

Because I didn't immediately see the USGS marker anywhere near the monument itself, I figured that I would check the rocky hill about 100 feet away - perhaps they marked the actual highpoint - after checking and finding nothing, I decided to go back behind the fence and look again, especially since most of the other people were by then gone. I went in the same way I came out before and found the marker really quickly on the wall. After taking a couple of pictures, I went and got the answer for a geocaching virtual cache really quickly - what was the manufacturer of the cleats on the flagpoles - and went back to the car.

When I got home I posted a message on the highpointing message board informing the club of the fence - apparently nobody knew about it yet. A club official inquired as to the access status and found that it was indeed closed, apparently until 2005 when the complete the renovation.

Update 2005-07-07 They have completed the renovation. I was there a few weeks ago but was not allowed inside the observation tower because they stop letting people in at 3:45 PM - I arrived a little after 4pm.

The message board thread

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Delaware (Elbright Azimuth, 448', Driveup)

5/8/2004 (12:30AM) #2
Pictures

Was in King of Prussia, PA (a suburb of philadelphia) at a business training conference and decided to take Riz & head down to the DE highpoint after the conference got out at 11:30pm. Arrived at the highpoint at 12:30am, took a few pictures (I didn't have my digital camera, so we picked up a throwaway on the way), and returned to King of Prussia.

Rizzo's first highpoint. On the way, he was reading my copy of a highpointing book, and after seeing a picture of somebody on the summit of Denali with the ice hanging off his beard, he commented about how nuts it would be to actually complete the 50. It will be interesting to read this several years from now to see how his attitude will change. I don't know if I'll ever actually do Denali. I'd like to, but I have not formally made a goal of it. Now I'm self-aware enough to know the reasons why I've not formally made Alaska a goal - and it's not that I'm worried about being in uncomfortably cold temperatures (what an understatement, eh?) Nor is it the inherent danger of Denali, although it might be related. I have not made a goal of it because I'm chicken of making it a goal and then not doing it and subsequently dealing with the personal feeling of failure, not to mention the public humiliation. So while I am so self-aware, I still am not committing, which is kind of dumb.
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Rhode Island (Jerimoth Hill, 812', short walk)

5/30/04 #3
Pictures

This is my third Highpoint, but it is the first trip I took solely to get a highpoint. Rhode Island has access issues - it is said by highpointers, tongue in cheek, to be the most dangerous highpoint in the country because of the private property that needs to be crossed in order to get to the rock in the middle of the woods that is the highest natural point in the state. The danger comes from somewhat notorius stories of people getting shot at for crossing the property. To deal with this, the highpointers club officially recognizes the sign on the road (see pics) to be sufficiently close to the highpoint to gain credit. Realizing that many people are doing it not for recognition from a club but rather for self-gratification and might have stricter personal standards, the club has negotiated with the property owner 4-5 days a year when people may cross his property and visit the highpoint. In exchange, volunteers from the club supervise the area on his behalf. This arrangement is due to the extraordinary efforts of the club and all people visiting the highpoint should express their gratitude to the club and the volunteers for the priviledge. One way to do so is to become a member of the club. A measly $15 bucks gets you newsletters, member lists, and other goodies but more importantly it supports the club's efforts to promote highpointing. Thankfully, it is not a government organization that has the power of coercion at its disposal - rather, it's a group of people just like you and me who do a lot of work for thousands of people they'll never meet. Keep that in mind if you come here.

May 30th was one of five days in 2004 where the highpoint was open to the public. It was also a day where my wife and I were scheduled to fulfill church obligations in New York City. We were able to leave New York at about 11:30am, and we headed straight for Rhode Island. After a couple of delays, including my silly navigation attempts that ended up adding at least an hour to the trip, we arrived at Jerimoth Hill at 3:30pm. After some cordial conversation with a few members, including a person claiming to be from the press, we proceeded up the driveway to the rock in the woods. It is located just off a clearing with a telescope platform built onto it - the highpoint itself is owned by Brown University and they use it as an observatory. With me were my wife and 4-month old son, both of whom were getting their first highpoint, and Rizzo, who was with me in Delaware and came here for his second. As I said, for me it was #3. After hearing that there was a geocache in the area, Riz and I went and claimed it while my wife, who was due to feed Joey, went to the car. We picked up the cache, thanks to the help of a club volunteer (For some reason, the RI caches were not transferred to my GPS receiver so I didn't have coordinates.)

The return trip was fun in and of itself. After going to Foxwoods because I was curious to see the world's largest casino (we ended up leaving because on Memorial day weekend we couldn't park within a half-mile of the casino), we headed down to Groton and ate at a place called Russel's Ribs. The "City of Ribs" was understated on the menu - Look at the pictures to see what I mean. We also briefly visited our friend Charles in Bridgeport. After dropping off Riz at the White Plains train station to return to Brooklyn, we headed home.
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Mississippi (Woodall Mtn, 806' Driveup)

6/16/04 #4
Uncaptioned photos now available

Mississippi was a part of the best roadtrip I've ever taken, and the first of six highpoints I would get in this roadtrip that can only be described as epic. When I decided to roadtrip to Dallas for a convention, one of the things I wanted to accomplish was a few of the highpoints in the south, a part of the country that I never get to. I went with Mike Rizzo, who had accompanied me to DE and RI, and we drove over 4000 miles in this trip. On the trip back from Dallas, I hit four highpoints without rest on the way to New York - 46 hours and 2260 miles. The trip was highlighted my numerous meals at Waffle House, lots of strange backwoods people, plenty of insect bites, and even a black baptist preacher in a teal mercedes with gold trim who couldn't find a church he was supposed to speak at. "You city boys better get out of these Louisiana hills here.."

Mississippi was a 4 hour detour from our trek to Texas. We exited I-40 and went south through Tennessee on local roads that had more tiny churches than people, it seemed. Our first meal of the roadtrip (Waffle House) was here. We left New York at about 6:45PM and ate in some town 60 miles north of the alabama at about 7am. We had an general idea of the direction we were going in, but it took a long time to go those 60 miles south due to a number of interesting diversion - like accidently driving right into Saturn's assembly plant. After making our way to the Alabama border, incidently seeing some Tennessee Amish, we turned west and drove to Mississippi. The highpoint there is in the extreme northeast corner of the state, so it was a matter of a few minutes after crossing the border before turning onto a Dukes of Hazard-style road up to the highpoint.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that the top of Mississippi was well kept and clean. It has a reputation for being a nasty place, littered with broken beer bottles and other trash such as that. It is clear that someone had changed the situation, which is very nice - evidence of the highpoint's former condition was present, however, as broken glass from old bottles was still present in the grass.
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Arkansas (Mt. Magazine/Signal Hill, 1 mile RT, 225ft gain)

6/16/04 #5
Uncaptioned photos now available

(This is part of a roadtrip described in Mississippi's writeup)
After leaving Woodall Mountain, we got gas at a station in Northern MS, were surprised at the quality of pizza, and continued on our way through Memphis, over the Mississippi river, and into Arkansas, where we quickly stopped at a Waffle House for lunch. AR amuses me. It is so different in so many ways from the lifestyles we're used to, and it's the most extreme of any of the states I've been to. There are so many stereotypes about Arkansas, which frankly are true. I saw a few kids that looked like the weird banjo-playing dude from deliverance. And the names of the towns (Arkadelphia?) make me laugh. Going into the Ozarks to snag Signal Hill, we made sure to stop at a deli to observe the locals. Pretty much what you would expect for Ozarks locals, but it was still interesting. The views from the vistas on Mt. Magazine are simply breathtaking, and they epitomize the beauty of the area.

Parked across the street from the trail head and walked up the well marked trail to the highpoint. Took a few pictures, picked up a geocache in the area, and came back down. We were the only people there.

On the way back at a vista we ran into an interesting person who was complaining that at 2500 feet, his van was not getting enough O2 to make it up the hill. He was serious. Anyway, he was a very nice guy from texas who was with his granddaughter (?). After taking five minutes to enjoy the views and shoot some photos, he was still sitting there in his van. Seeing our New York license plates, he wanted to treat us with Frank Sinatra's "New York." The problem was, he mixed up "New York" with "My Kind of Town" (Chicago) - really funny. He then said that he had lived in Texas for decades, but when he was younger he lived in New York, working at Junior's in Brooklyn (famous for cheescake.)

It took a good two hours to get to Hot Springs National Park - and since it was after dark, within easy striking distance of Dallas, and especially since I hadn't slept in 36 hours, we decided to turn in for the night there. We had dinner at Waffle House and checked into a hotel. Turns out that Hot Springs National Park is where my parents had their honeymoon - I didn't know that. We woke up in the morning and saw another amusing Arkansas feature - a drive through Beer store.
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Louisiana (Driskill Mtn, 535' 1.8 mile RT, 150ft gain)

6/20/04 #6
Pictures

(This is part of a roadtrip described in Mississippi's writeup)
Sunday morning at 6:15am we left Dallas to go west. Our first destination was a no-brainer: Waffle House in Texas for breakfast. THe next desintation was also a no-brainer: Louisiana's Driskill Mtn. Here, by the way, is where the preacher warned us about being in the hills. To be blunt, I hated driskill, and Mike wasn't thrilled with it. Mud was a problem. So were bugs. In the � mile walk to the top, I must have walked through 20 spider webs. Bugs were in my hair, on my legs, egh.. I couldn't wait to get out of there.

The abandoned church at the bottom was interesting - particularly the mens and woman's outhouses 50 feet from the church. The nearby cemetary had a few gravestones of people named Driskill, which was neat. But otherwise, we cleaned off as well as we could and got out of there.

The rest of Louisiana was really neat - especially the logging factories in the northern half of the state. When we finally got to Baton Rouge, we stopped for lunch (at Waffle House) and continued east.
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Florida (Britton Hill, 345' Driveup)

6/20/04 #7
Pictures

(This is part of a roadtrip described in Mississippi's writeup)
Continuing from the Baton Rouge Waffle house, we continued west and it was becoming clear that I had underestimated the time it took to get to Pensacola, FL. Going south for the highpoint didn't take too long, maybe 5 hours round trip, but added up with going east, the local roads we took south in LA, and the sheer mileage, it was dark by the time we arrived at the Florida Highpoint. What a neat highpoint. One could spend a good deal of time reading through the logs in the book located outside the nearby restroom. There was a log of someone who did FL, his home state, last - having completed all 50 highpoints. A photo of that log is contained here.

As a matter of interest, this Highpoint is one that happens to be within � mile of the Alabama border. Of 9 highpoints I've completed as of this writing, 5 are within 5 miles of another state. I'm curious as to how many of the lower 48 highpoints are so close to other states. It'll be something I'll look into.
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Tennessee (Clingman's Dome, 6643' 1 mile RT, 330ft gain)

6/21/04 #8
Uncaptioned photos now available

(This is part of a roadtrip described in Mississippi's writeup)
Well, it was the middle of the night, and I couldn't make it to Alabama because their highpoint has a gate thats open only in the daytime. So we continued north through Birmingham then northeast to Atlanta, then north to Chatanooga, then to Mephis. We were on our way to Clingman's dome, which I thought was the highest point east of the Mississippi. I realized, looking at a map however, that since it was on the TN-NC border, and that it wasn't the NC highpoint, that I was wrong. Went to my guidebook and realized that NC's highpoint was the highest east of the Mississippi. My plan was to hit this, then go to Kentucky, and maybe hit PA or WV on the way home. That plan was about to change. I was so psyched about hitting the highest point in the east that I decided to go to North Carolina after Tennessee.

But this isn't a summary of North Carlolina, this is a writeup about Tennessee. After driving through some surprisingly congested tourist-trap smokies towns at 9am on a Monday, we found ourselves in some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen. Unfortunately, it was foggy at higher elevations and I was unable to really take in the views, but even at the hazy misty lower elevations, the smokies are staggering. Anyway, after spending entirely too much time just getting to the mountains from I-40, we made it up to the top and found a huge parking lot with maybe ten cars in it. It was cold! After being in 100� weather in the south, it was refreshing to be thrust into sub-50� at over 6000'. After Mikey put on a second shirt for warmth, we started up the steep �-mile paved road to the summit.

There were a lot of people who underestimated the effort it would take to climb to the top. People from age 5 to 75 were huffing and puffing their way up. For our part, I hauled my fat ass up the hill and made a good workout of it, while teaching the Mountaineer's step to Mikey. When we finally did make it, the view was dissapointing because you could barely even see the ground below you from the lookout tower. Fog had enveloped the entire area and we weren't able to actually experience one of the best views in the smokies. So we took a few pictures and headed down.

One nice unexpected side-effect of this highpoint was the euphoria I experienced walking down from the endorphins of the workout on the way up. I really did feel like a million bucks. Which was the best I felt all day. By the time we got back down, those ten cars that were there when we arrived had swollen to at least 40.

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North Carolina (Mt. Mitchell, 6684' 0.2 Miles RT, 100ft Gain)

6/21/04 #9
Uncaptioned photos now available

(This is part of a roadtrip described in Mississippi's writeup)
This is the best highpoint I have been to thus far, and it almost didn't happen. With Tenesseee taking up all of the morning, we sat in a Waffle House in Asheville, North Carolina at 1pm. I wanted to go, but I wanted it to be Mike's decision because he is the one who had to be at work at 11:00am the next morning in New York. I basically showed him where we were on a map, and where the highpoint was, and said that if we don't do it, I would get him home by 10:00pm, but if we did, we could only hope for an outside chance to get home by 1:00am. He looked at me and said, well, we're here, might as well do it. I held in my excitement because I thought he was going to say go home because he was worried. As it turns out, this took a long time as well and I got him home at 3:45am - me at 4:30am.

Up the blue ridge parkway we went and immediately got stuck in some of the hairiest fog I've ever been in on one of the most windy roads (curves not wind) I've ever been on. For every car coming the opposite direction, there was less than 1 second notice before they passed. The visibility at parts was less than 10 feet.

The summit's visibility was no better. We were robbed of the views, which were at least as good as in Tennessee, but the experience up top was still incredible. Like Clingman's dome, there were a wide variety of people going up, but unlike Clingman's, the hike up was a moderate tenth of a mile with about 100ft of gain. It still winded me, though, and I'm not sure if I was winded due to the elevation or to the fact that I hadn't slept in about 32 hours. Either way, it wasn't so bad that I wasn't willing to go back down to the car for batteries when the camera died at the top. And thats what I did - and I'm very glad I did it. We took Lots of pictures.

Anyhoo, what makes this highpoint so great is the work that was put into it by the state. There is a museum, a gift shop, a snack bar, and a full-restaurant up there! In fact, we spent over an hour at the summit, fully aware of the fact that we were losing lots of precious time to get back early. The Blue Ridge Parkway, for its part, is amazing - and I can't wait for the opportunity to drive it in nice weather.

And this was the last of our six highpoints of the trip. It was incredible. Normally I'm pretty sick of driving after a long roadtrip - and this was my longest ever. Yet I am so anxious to get back on the road to bag some more highpoints that even I am surprised by my eagerness in the endeavor. Mikey is pretty psyched too, though maybe not as much as me. Either way, I don't see how he can resist the call one friday evening to go before dawn the next morning to grab the PA,WV,MD trio - or perhaps the New England monsters.. or maybe even a long roadtrip out to the plain states. Check back here often to see how we're doing!
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Massachusetts (Mt. Greylock, 3487', Driveup)

7/7/04 #10
Pictures

I was at UConn in Storrs, CT to see the corpse flower exhibit, and, since I had some extra time I figured I would pick up Greylock and Longacre Point on the way home. Unfortunately, my wife, who was picking up the baby at 5:30pm, left her keys at home so I had to skip Longacre Point to go rescue her.

But I did make it to Greylock. I went from I-91 to the Mass Pike approached from Pittsfield. It took a long long time to get through the moderate-sized town because I was being stopped at every single traffic light. When I finally got through the town and on to the access road, I was met with more frustrations. Now I don't drive extremely fast but I don't like to be slowed down by people who drive ridiculously slow - and a ten mile access road up Greylock is not my idea of a good time when stuck behind someone like that. I also knew by now that my wife would need to be rescued and was holding out hope that I would be able to get Longacre Point. But by the time I got through all the delays I knew it was a lost cause.

At the top, there is a small parking area where you are required to pay $2 - exact change. I am glad I happened to have a bunch of quarters because I didn't know about this and would have risked a ticket if I didn't happen to have it. Another thing that surprised me was the number of people up there on a Wednesday afternoon. This is certainly the most visited highpoint I've been to so far, and I wouldn't at all be surprised if it's the busiest one of the 50.

Walking up to the enourmous Monument, which is dedicated to MA war veterans, you get a profound feeling of dignity and honor which is only exacerbated by entering the monument and standing inside the atrium. Then you going up the narrow staircase to the base of the spiral stairs which reminds you of a secret passageway in some midevil castle. The stairs themselves are pretty scary, and a little girl, apparently afraid of heights, was screaming like, well, a little girl. I thought the views from the top are nice but typical for this part of the country. I took a few pictures, and, to make them interesting I included some 3-d topo maps rendered by delorme.

I spent 23 minutes at the top, went west to NY the first opportunity I could get (things just seem to move faster in NY), got on the Taconic State Parkway and was home by 6pm. My wife ended up waiting 30 minutes. oh well.
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Pennsylvania (Mt. Davis, 3213', very short walk)

7/31/04 #11
Pictures

First of three highpoints (MD and WV followed). Left Rockland County NY at 6am, didn't arrive in PA until about noon - it took a lot longer than I thought. It was an overcast drive and got excited at the sight of sunlight in harrisburg, but by the time we got there it was raining like hell - and it had just started. We waited in the car for a few minutes until I thought I saw a break in the rain and went for it. The walk to the highpoint from the parking lot is probably less than 200 feet. The break in the rain turned out not to be a break at all and we took cover underneath the observation tower, trying to keep my camera dry. Decided that we might as well climb the stairs and stand underneath the platform rather than wait for a break at ground level. My companion wasn't thrilled with waiting around up this tower because he was afraid of heights. We finally did go up to the top platform and spent about 90 seconds there in the light rain. After this, we returned to cover underneath the tower and the rain really intensified so we waited about 15 minutes during the torrential downpour that followed. Finally, we had enough of a break to go shoot a couple of photos at the actual highpoint and at the sign (which you see above.) When we got to the car, our we summoned our resourceful instincts and found a ziploc bag that enclosed some NY/NJ TC maps that I happened to have left in the car - which was a perfect enclosure which kept my camera dry on the two subsequent highpoints of the day.

A quick warning: Beware of Amish buggies - they travel very slow and they're sometimes concealed behind a hill or a curve, which will surprise you and potentially create a very bad situation if you're driving too fast on these back roads.

We took I-68 to exit 24 and approached through Salisbury.
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Maryland (Backbone Mtn, 3360', 2.2miles, 750ft gain)

7/31/04 #12
Uncaptioned photos now available

2nd highpoint of three this day, along with PA and WV.

This was a very rewarding highpoint for both of us - I have never hiked in rain like this. When we arrived at the trailhead there was another group leaving, who was concerned at our lack of adequet clothing in the rain. Figuring it was a short hike (and trusting the 'hot and humid but dry' weather reports - doh!)I was in a duofold tshirt and cotton shorts. They offered us trash bags to wear, but we declined - because as hard as it was raining we were still warm. Wet isn't bad as long as I'm warm. He also told me with disdain about how someone told him it was only a 20 minute walk to the top when it took him a lot longer. His was more of a nature hike however, and when it took a fat guy like me just 30 minutes to make it up there I knew that his stops to appreciate nature were taking longer than he thought. Anyway, it did only take 30 minutes to get up there, and thankfully the trail wasn't a mud trap but rather a well-consolidated gravel path. A word of advice is that if its raining, avoid the left spur that takes you to state line marker #3 - those rocks are extremely slippery. By the time we got to the top we we couldn't have been wetter if we jumped into a swimming pool. My duofold shirt was all right, but the cotton shorts were so heavy with water they had started to fall down from my waist. Interesting observation on the disadvantages of cotton - and, by the way, when we got home 12 hours later the shorts were still damp. Anyway, at the top the rain was still going strong with no sign of letting up so we took photographs from the picnic table which was under a tree (we used a ziploc bag to keep the camera dry on the hike itself), added a rock to the enourmous cairn at the summit and started down.

When we got to the bottom there was a couple with florida plates just starting out and if my memory serves, they were wearing blue jeans. i wonder how they fared in the rain, which had by now lightened - slightly - but it was still real rain. Their comment to me was "we thought we were the only ones crazy enough to come here today."

The rain was unusually heavy but it didn't dampen our spirits at all - in fact, we're pretty much thrilled about the rain because it makes for such a good story. My endorphins were kicking on the way down and I felt like taking on the world. It was probably the most rewarding highpoint so far - and there wasn't even a view to take in!

Be sure to check out the smallest church in the lower 48 while you're here - it's a neat little attraction and less than a mile from the trailhead.
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West Virginia (Spruce Knob, 4861', short walk)

7/31/04 #13
Uncaptioned photos now available

Third of 3 highpoints for the day - started out with PA then MD. To get an idea of how long it takes, we stood on Mt. Davis at about noon, and was on Spruce Knob by 6pm. We stopped for lunch for an hour or so in Accident MD on the way, and of course, picked up MD in between.

If you read the other two reports you'll see that it was raining hard on PA and MD. We were pretty psyched, then, for WV because the rain was ending and, while overcast, the visibility was improving and we were able to take in some of the views of the drive. Seneca Rocks in particular are amazing. This didn't last, however, when on the access road to Spruce Knob we got some more heavy rain. I was actually worried because I thought I heard thunder - and knowing that the western highpoints are notorius for their dangerous lighting, I wasn't about to go to one of the most exposed spots the Appalacians in a thunderstorm. So I was worried about getting up there and being turned around. Fortunately, I didn't see any subsequent signs of lighting until I was well off the Knob and in the valley.

I didn't anticipate the cold, however. I mean, I know that Spruce Knob is at almost 5000 feet - but on the other hand, it was West Virginia and it was July 31st. Imagine my surprise when I opened the car door and felt the rush of 40� air and sleet pelt me, and it didn't help that my shorts were still wet from the hike up Maryland. The skier in me really appreciated a miniature reprieve from the rain in the middle of summer, but I wasn't dressed for it. I pictured this being a hot and humid day and brought nothing but a cooler full of water, cotton shorts and a duofold t-shirt. It wasn't uncomfortable, but it was God's subtle way of teaching me to be prepared before going out on these trips.

So back to the story, we went up to the observation deck (which, by the way, would be a really nice spot for a BBQ in nice weather) and took a few pictures before getting out of dodge and back beneath the cover of trees. I'd estimate the wind on the deck to be about 50mph. It was actually exhilirating - three highpoints in a day and we were successful despite bad weather and bad preperation. We took US-33 back to I-81 (which took a long long time), had dinner (Waffle House) and were on our way back to Rockland COunty, NY - where we arrived after 2 in the morning. We left the previous morning at 6am.
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Connecticut (Longacre Point, 2380', 3.6 miles, 600 feet gain)

10/30/04 #14
Uncaptioned photos now available

After a cancelled trip to Killington to set up for the ski season, I decided to make a "quick" roadtrip to Longacre Point, Connecticut. The drive that I thought would be 90 minutes was closer to two hours, 2� when I made a side-trip through Sharon, Connecticut, the birthplace of YAF. Before leaving my house, I could not find my NYNJTC South Taconic trail map set, so I printed a cheesy map off of Topozone, brought extra batteries for my GPS, and went on my way. I wish I had the detailed trails on that NYNJTC map with me, because when I arrived there I found a confusing number of trailheads both north and south of the massachusettes border. Since I had planned to take the longer, easier approach from the south, I had to determine which of the three gates south of the state line was the actual jeep trail leading to the tri-point, then to the summit. using the map and a bend in the road, i determined that it was about fifteen hundreths of a mile south of the bend at the top of a moderately steep hill. turns out that the correct jeep trail was the middle one.

When I find that map, many questions will be answered. Instead of going up the trail to the col between frissel mtn and brace mtn that was marked on the map, i found myself on or near the summit of brace, slightly to the west of where i was supposed to be. Funny thing was that I didn't know it at the time. When I came to a trail junction, I used my compass and took the eastbound trail towards where I knew Longacre Point would be. Two things concerned me: 1 was that I did not see the tri-state marker, which should have come shortly after the right turn. 2 was that I was going down hill when I should have been going up. Either the map was wrong, my compass was wrong, or I was wrong. All I knew was that if I continued going east, eventually I would either get to the summit or to the road that my car was parked on. And I was on established trails. So I wasn't too concerned.

After about a mile, I came across a trail junction, and then another trail junction, and then another. I was basically hiking blind, knowing that I was going in the right general direction. At each junction, I took a trail that made the most sense. Finally, I found a red-blazed trail, where after about 100 yards I came to thr tri-state marker. Greatly relieved to be back on track, I took a few pictures and looked on my map to figure out just what the hell had happened. At this point I realized that I had gone up brace.

As you can from the photographs, the weather wasn't that great. The steep rocks between the tri-point and the high-point normally would be class-2, but they were wet effectively making them class-3 - I needed handholds to keep from slipping down. The trekking poles really got in way at this point. The steep rocks didn't last too long, and it wasn't too long after them that I came to the top of connecticut.

a four-foot-high cairn was there next to the notorius green peg, six inches high. If not for the cairn, the peg would have been easy to miss. I spent about 15 minutes there, where I took a bunch of pictures drank some water and ate two clif bars. I briefly pondered going to the summit of frissel, but with the navigation problems, the late hour, and with the 100-foot visibility due to fog, I decided against it. I packed up and was just about to leave when I spotted the corner of a blue container sticking out from behind a rock. Immediately recognizing it as a geocache, I quickly signed the log ("the first geocache I've ever found by accident!") and took off. The rocks were pretty difficult going down but not too treacherous. When arriving at the tri-point marker, I thought perhaps I would take the trail that goes due south along the NYS line. I decided that the next junction would be much more reliable - this is the junction that I thought was on the map because it was located at the col between frissel and the brace ridge.

I went to that col and turned south. After about �mile, the trail just ended. Disraught, I decided to bushwack. After about ten minutes of this where I made sure to check and recheck my compass (found myself going the wrong direction on a couple of occassions), I finally found the trail that I had been on before. Followed that back for about 1� miles to my car, got in and drove home. Suffice it to say that I'm eager to find the map to see just where the heck I was.

This looks like a beautiful area. I cannot wait to return on a clear day to check things out.
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Kentucky (Black Mountain, 4139', short walk)

11/5/04 #15
Uncaptioned photos now available

My Highpointing partner in Crime and I were going on a trip to Atlanta. Planned four state highpoints on the way: KY, SC, GA, and AL. Rizzo and I left NY at about 7pm and headed down now-familiar I-81 for an all-night drive to the highest point in Kentucky, Black Mountain, which lies right on the Virginia State line in the heart of coal mining country. There was some seriously fierce wind overnight on the trip down and whatever foliage was there on thursday was long gone all over the south by friday morning. After a fun drive through some small towns in western virginia (but south of west virginia), we proceeded on a windy (read: hairy) road up a hill to the Kentucky state line. It was still dark, but twilight was to come at any moment. The turnoff was pretty easy to find, and we drove up the road.

Incidently, we signed the Kentucky waiver months ago for permission to access this highpoint; but there was nobody there to make sure we had. Once we passed the FAA tower, it took a little bit of thinking to figure out where the actual highpoint was. We found a locked gate going up a hill and figured that must be it. Parked the car and opened the door to some seriously cold weather. After a couple of minutes of bundling up and checking headlamps, we started up the hill. It was still pretty much pitch dark walking up by the time we got to the summit the twilight was visible. We fumbled around in the dark for a while just kind of hanging out and taking pictures. We did end up spending a lot of time there as the sun was actually above the horizon by the time we left. The benchmark was pretty easy to find, and it seemed like a much more significant experience than it actually was.

The wind had passed and it was pretty silent at the top of Kentucky. We really enjoyed our time up there, even considering the mess that the place has become. more on that in a minute. A couple of other interesting things were that we had a whole new perspective driving down in broad daylight. The bullet riddled "welcome to kentucky" sign (education 1st) was the most amusing - the FAA tower awe-inspiring. The countryside beautiful, probably the first morning absent of leaves. The drive down the hairy road fun (and a bit more crowded). The tiny towns in western virginia opening up. It was going to be a great day.

The area around the highpoint is messy. Mississippi has a reputation for being the worst kept state highpoint, but it is now cleaned up and I would think Kentucky is now the worst. There is crap all over the place and it's not a safe area to let kids run around. Most of it is rusting pieces of metal.

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South Carolina (Sassafras Mountain, 3560', drive-up)

11/5/04 #16
Uncaptioned photos now available

The state highpoint coffee-table book that we brought with us described South Carolina's summit as the worst they had been to. Coming from Kentucky, which on an aesthetic level was the worst that I had been to, I was a little concerned about the situation. The book described hours of driving on logging roads, route-finding problems, and an anticlimactic summit. We were not thrilled about the prospect of this trip, but you don't get to 50 states by skipping South Carolina.

It took longer than expected to travel from the Black Mountain to Sassafras Mountain. We stopped at a Waffle House somewhere in Tennessee, and the north carolina high peaks region of the appalacian mountains were amazing to see - not to mention amusing as once again Mitchell had its eternal cloud covering it while the other peaks appeared to be having great days. It wasn't until noon that we finally arrived at Sassafras Mountain, and the delay was due to distance and the breakfast stop, not slow-moving logging trucks. We had no problem finding the left turn that drives up the mountain, and we didn't even have to park in the lower parking area as the gate to the summit was open. So we got to drive that last 100 yards to the summit, and after a short walk we were treated with a fine view to the north of the high peaks in North Carolina. We couldn't find any USGS markers marking Sassafras but we did spot a north carolina state line marker - another highpoint at (or near) a state line. We walked around all the high ground we could and signed the summit marker and left. This highpoint had an amusing feature as well - a burnt-out mobile home in the lower parking area. And we enjoyed our time up there - but to call it the worst of the 50 is just not true.

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Georgia (Brasstown Bald, 4784', 1 mile RT, 400' gain)

11/5/04 #17
Uncaptioned photos now available

WIth our fear of the notoriusly slow-moving logging trucks that travel the roads between Sassafras and Brasstown, we were worried that Alabama would have to wait until the next southern trip - a shame, because Alabama remains as the last state in the south for us to achieve. Anyway, it wasn't logging trucks that killed us but just the sheer distance on the 45-mph curvy roads between the summits that got us. A bit of a drag, but we'll live.

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Ohio (Campbell Hill, 1549', short walk)

2005-07-02 #18
Uncaptioned photos now available

This writeup is part of a larger trip report located here.

It wasn't completely dark by the time we arrived in Bellefontaine (pronounced Bell Fountain). The first bits of twilight were upon us, but for all intents and purposes it was still nighttime. I had a bit of a mixed reaction to this - It was later than I hoped it would be, but it was also going to be enough light to have some decent photographs. Bellefontaine is in the western part of the state, so I couldn't complain too much, so if I needed a rationalization for the tardiness, that was it. It wasn't until we left that there was enough light to get decent photos, but the flash photos weren't bad.

So this highpoint is located at a vocational school called the Hi Point Career Center, and there was some concern as to access. The author of the highpointers coffee table book, Joel Glickman, wrote under the heading for the Ohio entry as "highpointing Monday to Friday." There is a fence surrounding the center and a gate at the vehicular entrance, which is locked on weekends. If you want to come here during the week, but if you're coming on the weekends you're supposed to call ahead and ask them to leave the gate unlocked. When I called at 3:10pm on Friday, they had already left for the long weekend. In my research, however, I had read about a pedestrian gate that was not locked somewhere else on the campus. So I was prepared to walk around the perimeter of the place looking for this gate. When I arrived, I found that the main gate was locked. It turns out that this pedestrian gate is about 100 feet to the left of the vehicle gate. It's hard to make out in this photo, but the open pedestrian gate is on the left and the vehicular gate is on the right. It didn't look as though the pedestrian gate had been locked in a while. We proceeded up the hill and started shooting photographs. At the summit ,there is a benchmark, a flagpole, a veteran'hs monument, two signs saying that you're at the highest point of Ohio, and a summit register contained inside a brick column with a very smelly and loud generator running something other than the lights that were attached to it.

Mike was starting to show signs of fatigue. He had slept a few hours during the overnight drive and had coffee when I did, but because of other commitments, he was starting out after a week lacking sleep. He would have been happy to nap on the grass outside fence - but the passenger seat of my car had to do because we had to scurry on over to Indiana. I, on the other hand, was still on my 4AM caffeine high. The time when we left was before 6am, and the sun was just about to rise.

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Indiana (Hoosier Hill, 1257', drive-up)

2005-07-02 #19
Uncaptioned photos now available

This writeup is part of a larger trip report located here.

As his eagle scout project, a boy scout from Kentucky named Kyle Cummings had recently taken on the task of renovating Hoosier Hill, the highest point in Indiana. Apparently, it was in pretty bad shape. There was a pathetic fence surrounding the area, with an old, rusted, dangerous stepstool-like staircase going up, over, and back down over the 3-foot high fence. The 50-foot access road was unmaintained, and the summit area was a mess. Kyle had completely cleaned up the area. The fence and staircase were removed, a new sign was erected, a short nature trail was cut, a register was installed, picnic tables were added, and the driveway was covered in gravle. He had most of the materials he needed donanted, had friends helping out, and really made Hoosier Hill a pleasant place to visit.

When we arrived at 7:30am, the sun was rising behind the small group of trees surrounding the highpoint. Endless acres of farm surrounded the trees. The rise to the summit from the parking area was about 5 feet. The length of the walk was maybe 30 feet. The air was crisp and cool, and I was still energized from my 4am coffee. Mike was hurting.

It didn't take long to get to Hoosier Hill; it's within 5 miles of the Ohio border. Rural farmland is something that is completely new to me, so the drive went by quickly. Kyle did a great job renovating the highpoint, but it's still a nondescript hill in Indiana that nobody would ever notice if not for the fact that it happened to be the state's highest point. This point is just not interesting. There is no energizing hike to get to it, no whimsical monument, no reason to hang around. Mike wrote in the log that he wants a heavenly bed, referring to the ultra-comfy bedding at Westin Hotels. A more interesting highpoint would have distracted him from his fatigue. We spent maybe 20 minutes there and moved on.

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Illinois (Charles Mound, 1235', 2 miles RT, gain unknown)

2005-07-02 #20
Uncaptioned photos now available

This writeup is part of a larger trip report located here.

Warning to any highpointers that want to make the humble trek from Indiana to Illinois in their highpointing adventures: though it doesn't look that far on a map, it takes a LONG-ASS time to drive between them. I think my GPS told me it was 333 miles as the crow flies between the highpoints, and we drove most of it on relatively direct interstates. Yet for some reason it took about 7 hours to get to Hoosier Hill to Charles Mound, and our only long stop was for about 30 minutes. That was neat; we set up a backpacking stove, boiled water and ate camping food. If this trip did anything for me, it gave me an appreciation of how large the states of Illinois and Michigan are (more about Michigan later). Plus it's pretty mundane - this is a part of the country that is pretty flat, and all farm. I must have seen a million acres of corn alone on this trip. I wasn't feeling particularly tired at this point in the trip, but the sleep deprivation was definitely affecting my sanity. The part of my brain that considers a possible threat as safe stops working - and I start to mistake objects on the side of the road - rocks, mailboxes, trees - as things that can potentially make the trip bad. For example, from a distance, before you can positively identify it, a mailbox sometimes looks like a deer. Now I saw plenty of real deer on this trip (almost hit one - see Michigan for that story), but I saw a lot more mailboxes that I thought were deer. I got to the point where I became a nervous wreck because every time I saw a mailbox - which was every ten seconds - I would scare myself into thinking a deer was about to jump in front of the car. As time went on, this condition got worse - and a worst-case scenario mindset took over. At one point, I thought that a tree on the side of the interstate was a green bigfoot - and in the 2 seconds before I realized that I was going nuts, I was about to panic.

Well, at times like these, there is one solution: Red Bull. I used to drink Red Bull before anyone knew what it was. I was first exposed to it circa 1997 when a friend told me about the awesome benefits of drinking a Red Bull when programming a computer late into the night. I tried it and was quickly hooked. Within a couple of years, everyone was drinking it in California. When I moved to New York in 1999, Red Bull hadn't arrived on the scene yet - so I would mail order it from web sites such as getredbull.com - a resource for Red Bull drinkers living in areas where it was not available. Within a couple of years, however, Red Bull made it into the New York market and soon everyone was drinking it. Now Red Bull is available everywhere, even in gas stations in tiny crack-towns in northwestern Illinois. Well, to preserve it's potency, I treat Red Bull like caffeine. I almost never drink it unless I really need it - that way when I really need it, it really works well. This time was no exception. I was on a red bull high for hours - and I was sharp as a tack. There were no hallucinations anymore, I was wide awake, and energized like a hummingbird. I also felt a sense of euphoric happiness - almost like the sensation of being drunk, except without the disorientation and lack of judgement. My Red Bull high was awesome. So back to Illinois:

One of the surprises about this trip to Illinois was Dixon, an otherwise unspectacular farming town among dozens of unspectacular farming towns in Northwestern Illinois. Here is how these towns work: in between them, everyone drives about 70MPH. In them, everyone drives 25MPH. So driving through the area is an exercise of a few minutes of fast driving, followed by a few minutes of slow driving, followed by a few more minutes of fast, ad infinitum. What made Dixon different, besides it's unusually large size (it had at least 2 main streets instead of one) was the sign at the edge of town that said it was Ronald Reagan's birthplace. Now I'm a YAFer and to a YAFer Ronald Reagan is a pretty cool guy. I remember that he had been born in a rural town somewhere in the midwest but I had no idea that I would accidently drive through this town on my travels to a highpoint. So to me, this was a pleasant surprise, actually worth briefly stopping for. We went to the boyhood home of Ronald Reagan, took a few pictures. Spent maybe 10 minutes - we would have liked to have gone inside but the reality of the time it was taking to get to Charles Mound was really setting in. We made a quick stop on the way out of town to take a picture next to the sign and then we were out of there.

Charles Mound is a privately owned highpoint. It is one of only two highpoints that are closed to the public most of the time; the other is Jerimoth Hill, Rhode Island. It only is open on the first weekend of the four summer months, and the timing of this particular trip was set to coincide with this restriction. Another rule they've imposed is the requirement that you must park at the end of their driveway and walk up to the house. Not a big deal, except that their driveway is about a mile long. To a guy who had been sitting in a car most of the last 20 hours, I was eager to go out and get some exercise - though anxious to keep going to get to the next highpoint. It's not a long walk - less than a mile, maybe 300 feet of gain, so it probably was perfect. Just enough to give us a little exercise, but not so much that it delayed us too much.

Not that the I didn't enjoy this highpoint, but this is one that I have absolutely no desire to go back too. Joe Glickman wrote in To the Top that when he was on Sassafras Mountain, his quest to climb the 50 state highpoints felt "contrived." That is how I felt when I finally arrived at Charles Mound. Too remote, too much time, too unspectacular. Not that I didn't like the highpoint itself. It had a nice view of Wisconsin, the border being less than a quarter mile north. The hike up was short but invigorating. There were some chairs set up to relax. There were some great photo opportunities. And we had the summit to ourselves. I thought I'd see more people here, this being an open access weekend. I did see some people there - an truck with Washington plates was there when we arrived, I can safely assume it belonged to the two gentleman walking back down the hill on our way up; we didn't talk to them. On our way down we saw a woman who must have missed the memo about parking at the end of the driveway; she was parked almost all the way up by the house and had two cameras with her. It was clear that english was not her first language. Then a little further down, we passed a family - two parents, two kids - who thought that we had a pretty good chance of making it to Timms hill, Wisconsin by dark. They were really cool. Then, closer to the bottom, we chatted with a slightly older couple from Wisconsin who loved highpointing, but had no desire to climb Rainier. My wife wishes I was more like them. Then at the bottom, I freed the last available parking spot for a group in a van with Colorado plates. I noted that he had traveled as far as we had, and that was it. We were on our way to Wisconsin.

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Wisconsin (Timms Hill, 1951', 0.4 Miles RT, 130' gain)

2005-07-02 #21
Uncaptioned photos now available

This writeup is part of a larger trip report located here.

When I was planning this trip, the only thing I knew for sure was that I was going to go to Illinois and Indiana. I wasn't so sure about Ohio because of the weekend access issues at Campbell Hill, but I did think I was going to go to Iowa. After we would go south to Missouri, and then maybe to Alabama - it's the last state in the south that we don't have. But since the drive to Illinois was taking so damn long, I wanted to go someplace that wouldn't take us as far from home. We decided to go north to Wisconsin, leave Minnesota's 8-mile hike for another time, and pick up Michigan instead. We are advised while on Charles Mound that we could possibly make it to Timm's Hill by dark, but I knew that we had to go fast to get there in time. We briefly stopped for lunch outside Madison Wisconsin, then got back on an interstate (after all the farm roads, I missed the fast driving on interstates) and hightailed it up to Tomahawk, WI, where Harley Davidson manufacturs their Tomahawk motorcycles. I really would have liked to get a picture of that, but the sun was not too high above the horizon and we were still 30 miles from Timm's Hill. We were in a terrible rush.

When we finally arrived the park, the sun had set, but the twilight was such that there was still plenty of light to take pictures - but that wasn't going to last long. With the low light, high pressure, and unclear map, we had a couple of turnarounds on the way to the hill. It was frustrating. We finally got there, rushed out of the car and up the hill.

This was neat for me - the walk up was about the same length and gain as the walk up to the summit of Mt. Mitchell from its parking area - but I had lost about 40 lbs since I visited Mitchell - and I practically ran up to the top without hardly breaking a sweat. I would even had time to put on some DEET and don the headnet, but since I didn't, I was eaten alive up there. There were a couple of people walking down when we arrived at the top, but we didn't talk to them other than to say, "hi." On Illinois, you know that everyone you meet is a highpointer, on Wisconsin, they might just have been locals - you don't know. The summit contains an enourmous observation tower, probably 100 feet high, with really nice views of northern Wisconsin from the top. Mike, afraid of heights, was scared but he made it to the top for some photos, just like Pennsylvania. The light was getting low, so we didn't spend much more than the time it took to shoot the photographs and get out of there. The actual highpoint, marked with a USGS benchmark on a short concrete column, was underneath a microwave relay tower adjacent to the observation tower. We took every appropriate photograph we had time for, and left, in much less of a hurry than when we arrived.

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Michigan (Mt. Arvon, 1979', 0.5 miles RT, gain unknown)

2005-07-03 #22
Uncaptioned photos now available

This writeup is part of a larger trip report located here.

A little more advice: when sleep-deprived in Rhinelander, Wisconsin, an hour from Timm's Hill, and you want to pull over to take a nap, please pull over on the side of a road, or maybe at a gas station - but don't do it at Pioneeer Park. That is what the police officer told me after a midnight knock on my window. When I had pulled into the playground's parking lot, it was after 11:00PM, I had been up for about 40 hours, driving for 28 hours straight, and covered about 1600 miles. If you will, join me in my noodle for a second, because here is how I remember it. At some point, I woke up enough to look out the indow and see a white car parked on space away from mine in the same park. There was a hand pressed against the back window. I remember waking up twice, seeing that both time, and saying to myself, "a car with a hand pressed up against the back window", and in a tired stupor, not considering anything about it or recognizing its significance. The next thing I remember is the police officer knocking on my window. I turned the key and opened the window, noticing that Mike was already awake. She said that I can't sleep here, and asked for our ID. I didn't know where I was, but I shuffled through my wallet and gave it to her - and cringed because I thought that I was only a few miles from home in Suffern, New York and was about to try to come up with an exuse as to why I was sleeping in the car instead of driving home. SHe took the IDs and went back to her car. Then Mike said something that started to put my brain back on track. 30 seconds after being woken up, I finally remembered that I was in Northern Wisconsin, 1000 miles from home. I then looked over to the white car to my left as Mike mentioned that the two high-school aged kids chain-smoking in the front seat were caught having sex - Mike apparently witnessed the cop talking to them before coming to our car. This was starting to get amusing, and if I wasn't so tired I might have tried to talk to them for laughs. Maybe it was a good thing I was so tired - I couldn't think of anything to do but just look at them while I was sitting there waiting for the cop to return with our drivers licenses. When she finally did come back, she said "You're not from around here so you just go up that road and turn left and you can find a gas station to sleep at." I then noticed the picture on Mike's license - which was from before he cleaned up. It's unfortunate that I don't have a scan of his old license, but lets just say he looked like someone out of Requiem for a Dream in his photo. Without hesitation, I went to a gas station, topped off the tank, pulled into a parking spot, and went to sleep.

It was 3:30AM when I woke up, turned the key, and took off. This is why I like sleeping in the car, instead of hotels, while on these roadtrips. There's not much room for procrastination. 4 hours of power-napping is plenty for another long day of driving - and this day would be long. We were headed for Mt. Arvon, Mighigan, a spot outside a town called L'Anse, which is located on L'Anse bay on Lake Superior. It was over this bay that we saw the sun rise that morning, and it was unbelievable. Now Mt. Arvon has a reputation for being kind of hard to find, because the area its located in is frequently logged and the roads around it change a lot. The guidebook I had was also a bit outdated, so I was worried to say the least. Thankfully, the directions I had weren't bad, and we drove to the parking area easily.

Since I was eaten alive at Timm's Hill, and since I had time to kill at 7:30am when we arrived at the trailhead for Mt. Arvon, I took the time to don a headnet and to coat myself in DEET. Predictably, since I was prepared, I didn't need either. The book said that it was about a 1-mile hike from the parking area to the summit, and I was so tired that I was dreading it. There was a sign on the ground at the parking area that said "4 miles to go." This had me worried - 8 miles of hiking wasn't what I was interested in this morning. I wasn't too worried, though, because my GPS was telling me the summit was less than a half-mile away. Still, I expected at least a mile's worth of hiking before we got to the top. So when we arrived after a quarter mile, I was really happy. The summit area of Mt. Arvon has seen its share of visitors. There was an aluminum fire ring filled with burned beer bottles and cans. There were a couple of old picnic tables. There was an interesting-looking summit log container installed by area boy scouts. There was a cheap grill. And there was a USGS benchmark. No views, although I'll bet that it would be amazing if there was one - Lake Superior to the north, Lake Michigan to the south, Bay of L'Anse to the west, endless forests to the east and everywhere in between and beyond.

Driving back was an adventure. The dirt road had a turnoff that pointed to Mt. Arvon in one direction, Big Bay in the other. I looked at the map and saw that there was a road from Big Bay to Marquette - and if I could get to Big Bay, it looked like it might take a whole hour off the drive! So of course, I took it. It was a mistake. I should have my head examined for not loading mpas of the areas around the highpoints on my GPS before leaving, and you wouldn't believe how far we had driven before came upon a fork in the road - and didn't know which direction to go in. We guessed. Then we found another fork. So we guessed again. It wasn't long before we were lost. Now I knew how we could get found - my GPS is good for one thing and that was backtracking. So that wasn't a big deal - but I persisted and tried to keep going in the general direction of Big Bay. I was all for naught - after about an hour of this I found a road that I knew would lead me back to L'Anse and took it. When I got home and looked at the maps, I was amazed at how many roads there were in the area - and how hopelessly naive I was that I would find the way to Big Bay. Oh well.

The UP of Michigan is an interesting place. It is a long way from Detroit. The only interstate in the UP runs for about 10 miles fro the strait of Mackinac to Sault Ste. Marie, about 150 miles from where I was. The major road that traverses the north part of the UP is 28, and that's what we took. It is a 2-lane road - that is, one lane for each direction. I spent a lot of time passing people in between the towns. It went quickly, however, because there was something about the UP that kept me interested. For the first time in the trip, we ate a real meal at a real restaurant - pancakes, eggs, and toast - rehydrated backpacking meals were starting to get old, plus I was just so amazed that people live in such a remote part of the country. How remote? Detroit is the nearest city big enough to have a baseball team, and it took all day to get within an hour of it. Most of the driving on the UP was at about 80 MPH, and, like I said, there was a lot of passing going on. There was one stretch of 28 that was completely straight for about 25 miles - and completely flat for most of it too. It was a bit of an illusion because it looked like we were going downhill, but according to my GPS our elevation hadn't changed my more than 5 feet in about 10 miles. Cars were coming up on the horizon, actually appearing from behind the curvature of the earth, several miles away. It was difficult to judge distance of oncoming cars at first because they were always so much farther than I thought.

The other thing about the UP were the tiny towns scattered around. One place, called Trout Lake, was having their fourth of July parade when we arrived and felt compelled to block all traffic coming through the town on its one main street until the parade was over. Mike and I kept repeating to each other about how pointless parades are and how much we hate them, but there we were stuck watching kids with flags walking down the street. After getting through Trout Lake, there was a concentration of cars that had built up waiting for the parade to finish up. Before this, cars were miles apart and one could drive 5 minutes before seeing a car coming the opposite direction. After Trout Lake, there was a feeding frenzy of cars passing each other on the way to the Mackinac Bridge. Now a corvette was hanging out behind me, passing as I did but not passing me. I thought this was kind of cool and didn't really think anything about it, except that my honda was keeping up with a 'vette. Well the vet an us had just passed a truck towing a motorboat and some other car, had pulled back into the driving lane and cruising at about 85 MPH when disaster almost struck. At 85MPH, with a 'vette tailgating him, and a pickup truck towing a boat not far behind the 'vette, a deer suddenly jumped out across the road in front of us. Instinct took over. I honked, which I hoped would warn the Vette, and which I also hoped would tell the deer in no uncertain terms that he was a stupid moron. Since the deer came from the left, I braked and turned to the left, into the oncoming traffic lane. Thank god there was no oncoming traffic. The deer's quick trot turned into a complete sprint. When I had passed him at probably 60MPH, he was inside my lane and I was halfway into the opposite lane - I missed him by less than 6 feet. The 'vette apparently saw the deer too and had slowed down to avoid rear-ending me. Everything was good again. But it scared the shit out of me.

The rest of the drive home was pretty uneventful. We drove over the Mackinac bridge and down I-75, turned east at Flint (which reminded me of Jaws, which reminded me of my brother), then across Ontario and into Buffalo. At the duty-free I picked up some wine from France, scotch from Scotland, tequila from Mexico, and bourbon from Kentucky at about half the price I could get it in New York, proving that highpointing is good for more than just checking off lists. I found that taking the southern route through Binghampton from Buffalo to downstate instead of the Thruway not only saves about $15 in tolls, but it also saves about 60 miles of driving. At a rest area outside corning, a very nice boyscout leader was giving out free coffee, and we hung out there for the better part of an hour chatting with him in the wee hours of the morning. I drank 5 cups of delicious coffee. By Binghampton, my hallucinations of sleep deprivation were starting to return, so I pulled into a truck stop and slept for a couple of hours. Woke up at about 5:30am and continued driving. Got home at 8:30am and went to bed.

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Vermont (Mt. Mansfield, 4393', 2.4 miles One way, 2743' gain)

2006-07-30 #23
Pictures
Route: Long Trail to Profanity Trail on the way up (Summitpost's description) - Cliff trail to Stowe Gondola on the way down (Summitpost)

A friend, who has a house in Ludlow VT, was having a party there and my family had been planning for months to go. As much time as I spend in the mountains of Vermont, I have never been to the highpoint, which is a mere � mile from the top of Stowe ski area's gondola. I have skied at Stowe, and have ridden the Gondola, but never bothered going to "The Chin" of Mt. Mansfield, which at 4393 feet, is the highest point in Vermont. Somewhere along the line, I got the bright idea that the party would be a good time to pick up a state highpoint. Paul, a skiing buddy, wanted to come with, and the plans were set.

because of a last-minute family emergency, Alexandria couldn't come to VT, so I hitched a ride up with Paulie, and we arrived Friday afternoon. By friday night, because the weather was so oppressive even in VT, we had almost decided to cancel the trip to Stowe, which is 2 hours from Ludlow. Figured the hike would be miserably hot. Going to bed, we decided to "play it by ear", and, thankfully, come Saturday morning the weather seemed comfortable and Paul wanted to hit the road before it got hot, which we did at 8am. We made a couple of stops and arrived at 10:20am.

photo: Paulie at the trailhead

By the time we put on our hiking socks and were all geared up, it was 10:40, and I started one of the steepest hikes of my life. The trail gains 2700' in less than 2� miles, and while it wasn't too hot, the humidity above about 3000' was 100% (the summit was socked in with clouds.) I decided to take it very slow - even though my running has reduced my resting heart rate to just 58, I still weigh well over 300 lbs and moving that much weight 3000 feet takes a lot of energy. Paulie weighs a lot less - about right for his height, but is not conditioned like I am - plus he smokes about a pack a day. So we chugged along at about 1 mile per hour, which for most people would be excruciatingly slow. For us it was just fine. The ground and rocks were wet, but there was no rain below 4000'.

photo: Covered in sweat after climbing about 1800 feet

The route we took was the "Long to Profanity" trail. Here is Summitpost's description of the route. The Long Trail is one of America's classic hiking trails, extending a couple of hundred miles in Vermont north to south from the Canadian border to the Massachusettes border, following the Appalacian trail from Killington Peak south. The profanity trail is a �-mile long spur trail that leaves the Long trail about 800' below the summit and rejoins the trail on the ridge on the other side. The total hiking length was about 2.4 miles. We chose to do the Profanity trail because it wasn't as technical, and I wasn't interested in climbing class 3 and 4 exposed rock in wet conditions after climbing 2600 feet. Summitpost describes the Profanity Trail as a "high-stepping, slight scramble for .5 miles and a gain of 850'. The route is narrow and can be slick, however never requires anything more than class 2 scrambling." I call it a "God-damned death march" because I'm gaining 850' in a � mile. Steps were as high as about 4� feet. Oh, and it started raining.

It tops out right at treeline.

photo: "Welcome to the Alpine Zone of Mt. Mansfield"

photo: Happy, at the end of the death march.

Once we were on the ridge, it was relatively easy hiking to the summit of Mansfield, where we arrived at about 1pm.

photo: Summit photo

photo: My official Vermont thumbnail.

photo: We had great views of everything within 100' of the summit

At the summit, there were a couple of people hanging out who worked for some agency or non-profit or something (I don't remember exactly), and apparently, it was their job to be on the Chin at the time. One of them was a woman who provided some extremely helpful information - the Stowe Gondola was running, and for a fee they would give us a ride down. The trail to the Gondi was sketchy, but not too long.

photo: The helpful woman is on the right.

It took exactly 0 seconds of discussion to decide that we would rather save our knees from the steep hike back down, and since the "Cliff Trail" was further down the ridge, I was excited to spend that much more time above treeline.

We probably spent about 30 minutes on the summit before getting the hell of out dodge. Conditions on the summit were... refreshing. Temps were about 60�, wind was about 50MPH, and there was light rain that the wind drove into you like bullets. In my infinite wisdom, I had no extra clothes, but I was really comfortable - it cooled me off after a tough hike.

photo: Hunkering down behind a rock, drinking some water.

The Cliff Trail to the Stowe Gondola was difficult. It involed class 4 rock, and the wet conditions weren't helping. I did not take any photographs. I was too worried about falling into one of the 15-foot deep rock crevasses that would have swallowed me whole. Fortunately, it was short - 800 feet of elevation loss total (probably half of it was between the summit and the top of the Cliff Trail), and maybe � mile total. We took about 45 minutes to get to the gondi because it was so damned technical. WHere it wasn't technical, the sloping rock was slippery enough that we got on our butts and slid down. Stowe wanted $12 for a one-way trip down the gondi (nobody rides for free at Stowe) and it was a �-mile walk back to the car.

photos: 1 2 Relaxing after a hard hike. (compare to the trailhead photo)

We were back at the party at 5:30, and we showered and relaxed. The rest of the night was characterized by a fascinating combination of alchohol, fireworks and bonfires, but that's a story for another time.

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Vermont (Mt. Mansfield, 4393', 2.4 miles One way, 2743' gain)

New Hampshire (Mt. Washington, 6288', Cog Railway

Pictures
2006-08-26 #24
In To the Top, Reachin for America's 50 State Summits, Joe Glickman writes, "Like all self-respecting highpointers, [the photographer] and I had planned to hike to the summit", and then he goes into the reasons why he didn't. I had planned on hiking up myself, and here is my reason for not: everyone I was going with cancelled on me, and I didn't want to hike alone.

Here were the plans: me and a few friends were going to hike to the summit via the Tuckerman Ravine Trail. Meanwhile, my wife and son were going to drive around to the other side of the mountain and take the Mt. Washington Cog Railway up. We were to meet at the top, and then take one of several options down. But when each & every individual who had planned to come on the hike had cancelled, I had a choice - either hike alone, or don't go at all. Hiking alone would have been dumb, so I almost cancelled the trip when I remembered that Joey would hate to miss the cog railway. So I decided to go after all, allowing joey to do the cog railway, and my I would ride up with them.

Allowing for breakfast, it was just over a three-hour one way drive from our friend's place in Ludlow, VT to The Base of the Cog railway. We had been driving from about 8 to 11, and our reservation was for a 12pm train. In the Last few miles of drive, however, I noticed a large amount of smoke coming off the side of the mountain. It took me a few minutes to realize that this wasn't a brush fire that could potentially ruin our plans for a state highpoint and blow a 3-hour drive, but the smoke coming out of the coal-powered boiler. It was a preview of things to come.

The Mt. Washington Cog Railway is an interesting thing. Opened in 1868, it is the oldest cog railway in the world. Because conventional railway tracks don't provide enough friction to allow a train to ascend steep hills, a special toothed rack rail is added so that tains fitted with special cog wheels will climb it. The average pitch of the track at Mt. Washington is 25%, maximizing at about 37%. The steam locomotive must be modified to work in this environment - the boiler, which requires water to cover to boiler tubes and firebox sheets at all times, must be kept fairly level at all times. Failure to do so could melt the boiler wall. As a result, the boiler is tilted forward relative to the wheels so that they are more or less level on the steep railway. The disadvantage of this is that the entire line, including maintenance shops, must be laid on a gradient. As a result, almost every cog railway in the world is now electrified, with Mt. Washington being the most notable exception.

Because of its rich history and uniqueness, the Mt. Washington Cog Railway is something that many people want to do at some point in their lives. I was that way. Now that I've done it, I can't imagine why anyone would want to do it twice in their lives. The ride is loud, bumpy, and painfully slow. If the windows are open, particals of coal, some as large as pebbles, fall into your hair and clothes. If you're not careful where you put your hands, you can end up with coal-blackened fingers. And, at $57 a ticket for adults, you're going to want to bring some KY for when they bend you over at the ticket booth. You spend a mere 20 minutes at the top to negotiate the large crowds before you have to go down. Really, the only value the railway had is that my kid loves trains. Too bad that he was the only young child on the thing. My wife commented (with a straight face) that it was like riding a jackhammer for an hour. For my part, I felt like I was being teased - some of the most beautiful hiking trails I've ever seen, especially near the great gulf, were less than 100 feet away, and I was sitting in a loud bumpy train.

The railway is very steep. There is a feature called Jacob's Ladder, which has a 37.41% pitch. A pitch this steep would be a black or double-black diamond trail at a ski area. WHen you're skiing it, you realize just how steep it is. But in the train, it doesn't feel as steep as it really is, and because of the disorientation, it took about 10 attempts to get a picture that was level with the ground, even with a view of the horizon. The front of the coach was 15 feet above the back of the coach, but you wouldn't know it by sitting inside.

The summit was a frenzy. It was crowded and we only had 20 minutes. It was beautiful up there in the clouds, and I spent most of it waiting in line to get a picture at the summit sign. It didn't help that joey wouldn't cooperate on a solo shot. I had planned on hiking up the other side of the mountain from the cog railroad on the Tuckerman Ravine trail, so I walked over in that direction to get a picture or two. The Clouds obstucted my view on this side, though, so it was hard to even identify where the ravine was. By now, the train was signaling that we had to get back down, so I had to scurry off. I wasn't too happy. I took a picture of the Vans that give rides down to hikers for $12, and got back on the train.

The 3-mile ride down takes less time (40 minutes) than the ride up (well over an hour), and we spent a few minutes at the museum at the bottom. They have a couple of cool exhibits, including a replica boiler that the kids can play on. Of particular interest is the original locomotive out in the yard. Called Peppersass, because its vertical boiler resembles a pepper-sauce bottle, it was used to build the railway. After being lost for many years as it moved about the country and placed on display at exibitions, the ownders of the railway at the time decided to resotre it and make a commemorative trip for the railway's 60th anniversary. From wikipedia:

"During the ascent, the locomotive's front axle broke and the locomotive began descending the mountain at high speed. All but one of its crew jumped to safety (though some suffered broken bones) but one man did not escape and died. Although the locomotive broke into pieces, the boiler did not rupture, and the pieces were later reassembled to reconstruct the locomotive for static display."

We got in the car and drove back to Ludlow, had dinner, and were asleep by 10pm.
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Alabama (Cheaha Mtn, 2405', drive-up)

2007/03/22 #25

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Oklahoma (Black Mesa, 4973', 8.6 mile RT, 775ft gain)

2007/03/25 #26

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Kansas (Mt. Sunflower, 4039', drive-up)

2007/03/24 #27

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Arizona (Humphrey's Peak, 12633', 4.5 miles, 3300ft gain)

2007/05/17 #28

Nebraska (Panorama Point, 5424', drive-up)

2008/08/22 #29

South Dakota (Harney Peak, 7242', ROUND TRIP: 7.04 miles, 2119ft gain)

2008/08/23 #30
Please click here to view GPS log
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Steven Tursi <pizzapizza@gmail.com>
Last Update: 2007/05/18
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