Virginia #18 return of the hike

We would have liked to include Virginia's highpoint during our October 2007 marathon highpointing trip, but the long hike didn't fit our schedule. So we made a weekend out of it and brought Pig.

Becki and I haven't had this long of a hike since we did Colorado's highpoint in 2006. Our guide book says it is 8 miles round trip, but we took a wrong direction at some point so we probably made it 9 miles.

We hit the trail early in the morning. About 1 mile in, Becki emphatically whispered, "PSST" and awkwardly pointed to a group of wild ponies up the hill. We saw many more groups in the distance, but the prize was a mother and two foals in the middle of the trail!


They even came up to me but when I pulled my hands out of my pocket they jumped back. Becki kept her hands out and petted these two babies.


I wore "trail shoes," the North Face ones on the right. Not a good idea. Now I know why there are hiking shoes. These lightweight shoes flexed with every rock I stepped on and really made my feet sore. I'll remember in the future lightweight shoes are only good for flat even terrain.


As you can see the weather and hike was beautiful.
I think this is the first time we tried out the trekking poles we got as a wedding present. They really made hiking a breeze. Thanks Sarah, Trey, and Kathy!

Trees blocked the view from the summit.
Pig (our dog) came on the trip but because she's 15 years old and hates rain, we decided to let her hold down the fort. We left her at our campsite underneath a giant 12'x12' rain tarp. We came back to find a soaking wet yellow dog whose leash was tangled up in the picnic table . She didn't quite figure out the shelter we left for her. Not too smart, but she sure is cute!

Arkansas #17 and the death of the VW Golf TDI

After we passed through Little Rock, Arkansas, we hit some thick traffic on the highway. Maybe our car had a secret button that turned our car invisible. Maybe I accidentally hit it. Maybe the lady in the white car was talking on her phone and didn't look over her shoulder during her lane change. Whatever the case was, she ran us off the road. Becki was driving, and she tried to compensate. Unfortunately, our car spun out of control and skidded through 3 lanes of traffic. Luckily, no one was seriously hurt...except the TDI. We totaled the car and the cause of the accident left the scene, so we were stranded in not-so-scenic Conway, Arkansas. The police officer was great, and she helped us with everything. We needed to stay the night and wait for our new rental ride with enough room for P-Dog. We weren't allowed to smoke in the rental, but Pig sneaked in a rawhide "stoogie."


The trailhead to the highpoint. It was a sunny, crisp day. Perfect for highpointing!


After hitting the summit, we were on to Springfield, Missouri (my hometown). Since we had out tearful good by with the TDI and it was going to be $400 to rent a car to get back to Columbus, we bought a used Civic to drive home. Just to clarify, I drove the entire way because Becki can't drive a stick. (Becki's note: I can drive a stick, I just choose not to.)

Louisiana #16

Florida #15

This makes our second highpoint on this day.

Lakewood Park, the lowest state highpoint at 345 feet. Neither Becki nor Pig were ready for the camera.



This was one of those anti-climatic highpoints. It was not clear we were on a highpoint of anything. It was so flat, I think we saw the ocean (not really).

Afterwords, we drove west along the cost towards our next highpoint destination. We stopped at a huge restaurant on the beach in Destin before searching for a campsite. It was another long night of looking for a campsite along our route to Louisiana.

Alabama #14, Cheaha Mountain

We topped off our biological tanks with some Cracker Barrel near Birmingham before traveling east to the Alabama highpoint. Alabama is a drive up and includes camping. We should have researched the camping situation beforehand because we could have spent the night at the highpoint. However, too much planning takes some of the excitement out of the trip!

As shown in the picture above, the Cheaha Mountain has a nice lookout tower.


We were too cheap to pay for the binoculars, so we just took our picture with it instead. Note, we used the correct flag this time. Good job, us!


The view to the north from the tower.


Pig couldn't make it up the steep stairs of the tower, so she settled for a photo at the sign.

After all this highpointing we were hungry. Fortunately, while driving through some small town in southern Alabama on our way to Florida we saw Unique Bar-B-Que, this little joint in the middle of nowhere. Of course we ordered the pulled pork and sweet tea (pronounced swate-tay). Now, every barbecue is compared to Unique Bar-B-Que.

Mississippi kicks off Spring Break 2008 highpointing marathon

We kick off a long week of state highpointing in the South with Mississippi. Our journey starts on Sunday March 16th from from Becki's parent's house in Cincinnati with our Golf TDI packed up with Pig (our dog, not an actual pig). We unsuccessfully attempted to unload Pig at Becki's parents' house "Hotel Charlie" for the week while we traveled across the South.

The drive was long to the first highpoint and our VW TDI Golf rolled over to 100,000 miles just as we crossed into Mississippi from Tennessee.

We accidentally flew the wrong flag for this pose, so I GIMPed in the correct one. Pig is modeling her pink Copper Mountain Colorado bandanna.

Pig is all about the "hero" pose.

We barely made it into the northeast corner of Mississippi before we crossed into Alabama in search of a place to camp for the night. Without a nightly camping plan, we used the tent symbol on our road atlas to search out camping sites. We wasted an hour or two driving to a state park to find that it was closed. Hint: state parks typically close at sunset. Thanks to our computer street atlas, we found phone numbers and navigated our way to a private site and settled down for the night as the only occupant.

What's missing from these pictures?

Our religious blog readers may have noticed that there is something missing from our last highpointing trip (NC, SC, GA, TN, KY). If you study our entries carefully, you may be able to guess what that is. If you think you know the answer, post it as a comment or send the answer in a briefcase filled with unmarked bills. The first right answer will receive a FANTASTIC gift package! Act fast...you don't want to miss out!

Kentucky Highpoint

On the way home from Asheville, NC we stopped at the Kentucky highpoint, Black Mountain.

Our 12th highpoint! At this pace we will be done is less than 10 years.

The marker was nicely tucked away in the trees. I've excluded all the radio towers and the FAA radar that litter this highpoint.

We picked a great time of the year to do these last five highpoints.

North Carolina

Some photographer took this of us on a lookout on the beautiful Blueridge Mountain Parkway.

Another picture from the parkway.


We get to the parking lot for the summit to find out it is closed!!!! On top of this there is a ranger truck right at the trail head with the caution tape and backhoe. For a while we think it is one of the guys walking around in the parking lot. We hang around for a while and most people leave and I convince Becki to sneak up to the top with me. We traveled too far to turn back now.

You can see here the top isn't far from the parking lot.

Shhhh, they might hear us.


This is the summit pose. Isn't nature wonderful with gravel, rebar, concrete forms, heavy construction equipment?

On the way out of the park Becki caught a nice sun set. We had planned on camping in the park, but we were really hungry, without food, and the restaurant in the park had already closed. We got a little lost trying to leave the park and follow the Google Map directions. We were supposed to turn on right on "Old Railroad Grade". No surprise this wasn't a road that could be traveled by car. We had no choice but to head back to Asheville, NC. Fortunately my parents were staying in Asheville so we called them up and stayed in their room.

South Carolina

In about 3 hours after Georgia's highpoint we reached South Carolina's Sassafras Mountain. We didn't see anyone else on this highpoint and it was probably the ugliest highpoint we've been to so far. Not much to say about this one except now we've completed 10 highpoints.


My outfit is lovely isn't it: crocs, wool socks, and plaid shorts.
On to North Carolina's Mount Mitchell...

Georgia Highpoint

We got up super early (6AM for us :) to highpoint GA, SC, and NC today. This meant we cruised through the Smoky Mountain National Park with hardly any traffic. We learned many valuable lessons about following Google Map directions. The best thing when making lots of turns is to follow the directions exactly and reset the trip odometer at each step along the way. Then you can cross off each direction and can anticipate the upcoming roads. This is really important when traveling in the middle of nowhere. Most importantly though, don't try to follow Google Map directions if it tries to put you on an "unnamed road". I though I was clever by getting to the Georgia highpoint from the northeast side to save time, but the road turned out to be some old logging road that was no way suitable for our little Golf TDI. So we lost a little time and drove around the mountain and followed the directions from our guide book.

Black is the color of the day. The guide book said it was an hour round trip hike, but it was more like 15 minutes to the top on a fairly steep asphalt trail. It was funny to see people there with hiking boots, camel packs, and other unnecessary hiking accessories. I climbed Brasstown Bald in my crocs.


On the way down we did the "I just crapped my pants walk" and giggled the whole way down. Now that we got our ab workout in its time to go to South Carolina.

Tennesse Highpoint

Here we are on top of Clingman's Dome our 8th highpoint. The crux was probably finding a parking spot because the place was packed. Word on the street is that this is the most visited highpoint in the US. I believe it, there were bikers, babies, and grandparents hiking with us. None of our grandparents (or babies, or bikers) were with us, but Shawn's parents did the hike too! This was Debbie's 3rd highpoint and Dave's 1st. Shawn needs to work on his smile, doesn't he?

Tomorrow, we'll be on the summit of that peak, Mt. Mitchell, NC. I suggested that we hike there from Clingman's Dome, but Shawn totally wussed out. He'll say it's not true, but it is.

We were lucky to get such a great view--73 miles away! Since the 1940s, air pollution has reduced the view by up to 80% in the summer. Luckily the Tennessee Valley Authority has reduced the the impact of coal-fired power plants by upgrading ozone-emitters, and residents and businesses have signed up for green energy programs.

Tonight we'll practice our smiles in the mirror because tomorrow will be a big highpointing day with GA, SC, and NC in our sights.

Next highpoints

We now have plans for 5 highpoints this weekend through Tuesday. We dropped Virginia from the list because it is a longish hike, but we'll do it separately over a weekend in the near future. I made a detailed google map of the trip, all of 24 hours of driving, whew!!!

We are considering several more for spring break 2008. Our trip may include Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Illinois.

Six more highpoints soon

Becki and I are planning on highpointing soon. We may go the last weekend of September or the following weekend depending on Becki's plans for traveling to Reno to do some science. The plan is to do Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia all in about 3 or 4 days. I briefly contemplated trying to do these in a record time. The fastest 6 have been done in is 19 hours and 10 minutes by Nate & Steve Fuglestad and Chris Waggener according to the 2006 Highpointers Club Directory. I played around with Google maps for awhile trying to see what was the most efficient sequence to complete them is. The best I came up with was a 10.5 hours of driving between them. Of course this doesn't including the hiking time which isn't much for these. In this map I used the closest town to each of the highpoints so the times are a little off. Becki talked me out of this. It is probably best to enjoy them instead of rushing around. Maybe if we get bored in our later years will we shoot for a record time.

Disaster averted

I was playing around with Blogger last night and added some additional blogs (not up yet). I decided to delete on of them, but I accidentally deleted the highpointing blog!!! My first reaction was oh s*&% I have to start all over, but thanks for Google cache I just looked up the page in Google by typing in "cache:highpointing.blogspot.com". Then it was just a matter of copy and past and uploading photos again.

Highpointers Club

Becki and I have now joined the Highpointers Club.

Missouri's High Point

This is Pig's first highpoint. She looks excited, doesn't she?

This is Pig's first highpoint. She looks excited, doesn't she?

Too failed attempts: Nebraska & Kansas

I'm sad to report that we had our first two failed attempts. The day after summiting Mt. Elbert, we left Leadville, CO in a marathon quest to highpoint Nebraska and Kansas. The snow melt from the previous week's storm left muddy fields across the great plains. My little Honda Civic was not brave enough to swim through the mud.

Colorado's High Point

Here we are beginning our journey up to the highest point of Colorado, Mt. Elbert. It also is the highest point of the Rocky Mountains. The peak is the one above Becki's head. We have a long ways to go.
Here I am checking our progress on my trusty Garmin eTrex. Fortunately I uploaded our path into it since the trail at times became hard to follow with the fresh snow.
We've reached 10,920 feet and setup campsite for the night. It took us about 3 hours to get to this location from the car.

The summit at 14,433 feet. We had to use snowshoes on the entire climb above 10,000 feet. It took us 7 hours to reach the summit from our campsite. There were places where the snow was so fresh and soft that in places we sank down more than a foot even with our snowshoes on!
The view was awesome. This was Becki's first real mountain climb and our first winter ascent.