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.

West Virginia's High Point

8PM: It is freakin' cold here on top of the observation tower of West Virginia's high point. Driving up the mountain, we had a great sky with a full moon. As soon as we got here the clouds engulfed us.

The fog can be seen a little from the picture above.

Here we are, warming up in the car after our summit. Forget about camping in this cold, windy weather! We are going straight back to Columbus...

Maryland's Highpoint

Are we there? Nope... False peak #1....

This must be it... Nope, we are just crossing from West Virginia into Maryland on this ridge... False peak #2!!

We've made it. This was by far are most exciting highpoint yet. For one, it was the first one that we had to actually hike some distance. We probably hiked about an hour round trip, but is more exciting than just stepping out of the car. Also, we crossed a state border during our climb. The sun has now set, so we need to get going for West Virginia's high point tonight.

Pennsylvania's High Point

Here we are on Pennsylvania's highpoint, Mt. Davis! It's almost 3 PM and this is our first of three highpoints we will attempt today. We followed the road signs to the highpoint instead of the guide book's direction, so we pulled off the road too soon. After wandering into the woods and staring at road signs, Shawn busted out his new Garmin eTrex GPS receiver and it showed us the way.

View from the observation tower. This thing must have been made in the Civil War it was so rickety. The relentless wind didn't comfort us much either. We saw some enormous wind turbines on the way here and from atop this tower.

Preparing for our next three highpoints

After spending money like we have it at IKEA and REI in Pittsburgh, we enjoy some complimentary wine at the Priory Hotel downtown. This hotel was awesome! Tomorrow we will attempt to highpoint PA, MD, & WV.

Indiana's Highpoint

Just after we summited Ohio's high point we drove to Hoosier Hill in Indiana. I gave Becki her second manual transmission driving lesson in route. Becki did some unintended tire spinning :) Indiana's high point was quite anti-climatic since it is not obvious at all that it is the highpoint of anything. We did however see a sundog from near the summit.

Ohio's Highpoint

Becki and I summited Ohio's high point today. This is our first highpoint! On our way out of Columbus, I experienced Skyline Chili for the first time. I think it is an acquired taste. It was only an hour drive to Bellefontaine. The crux of our climb was a locked gate which was supposed to be open (I contacted a supervisor earlier in the week). Just 49 more to go. Now on to Indiana this evening...

The crux.

Welcome

Becki and I were driving up to Sandusky Ohio with my parents to enjoy some rides at Cedar Point. On the way up Becki told us how she heard a story on NPR about "highpointing". She explained how some adventures people are going to the highest point of each state. We both talked about it and got really excited. This is a great project for us to do together. I'll keep you posted on our progress. We expect to take a decade or two to complete all 50 states.