The Eclectic Traveler

I completed my goal of finishing the lower 48 State highpoints. There was some cost, as I slipped on some ball-bearing gravel on the way down, fell and broke two ribs. Those will heal. The trip report is online.

The Highpointers Club maintains a memorial to Jack “Guru Jakk” Longacre, the founder of the Club, in a glade on the slopes of Russell Mountain. The glade has a view up to the top of Taum Sauk Mountain, the Missouri highpoint. In the glade are two telephone poles with arrows pointing to the various state highpoints. I’m in charge of maintaining the signposts, so developed a web page with an inventory of the arrows, their conditions, names of the highpoints with elevation, distance and bearing from the Glade. Right now, a couple need replacing because of weathering plus there are four states missing: Maine, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin. Hopefully, some of the folks from the Club will volunteer to make these arrows so I can install them the next time I’m down to Taum Sauk.

In August, we set out once again to attempt to scale Kings Peak, the Utah state highpoint.  This would be my fourth attempt, having been stymied by weather or altitude issues on earlier tries.  We picked a good weather window and succeeded in getting to the top in good order this time.

The illustrated trip report is posted for your reading pleasure. Note that the topo map with GPS track is a big file when viewed at full resolution, 4000 x 5000 pixels and about 17 meg. Also, the Java version of the summit panorama has a full-screen option so you can use all your available display real estate to view that.

My 2013 highpointing trip took me to Borah Peak, Idaho and Kings Peak, Utah, both for the third time.  Borah is one of the toughest climbs among the 50 state highpoints but we succeeded in getting past the aptly-named Chicken-Out Ridge and on up to the summit.  Contrariwise, the weather didn’t cooperate with our plans for Kings Peak a few days later.  Fortunately, Kings is up a beautiful valley and a pleasant hike to the base camp near Dollar Lake so having to return for a better weather window isn’t too bad.  For more details, please read my illustrated trip report.

The annual Highpointers Club convention took place over the previous weekend. While there, I shot a panorama at the summit. The club’s timing was great because Saturday was the pick day of the event, weather-wise, so everyone had a great day to either hike up a couple of miles of the Appalachian Trail or just drive up to the parking lot a couple of hundred yards from the highpoint monument in the aptly-named High Point State Park.

I’ve recently posted a trip report about Nathan’s and my climb of Humphreys Peak out in Arizona back in September.