Monday, October 22, 2007
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!
Saturday, October 20, 2007
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
Labels:
highpoint completion,
North Carolina
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...
On to North Carolina's Mount Mitchell...
Labels:
highpoint completion,
South Carolina
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.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Tennesse Highpoint
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.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
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.
We are considering several more for spring break 2008. Our trip may include Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Illinois.
Friday, September 14, 2007
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.
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