The last State Highpoint planned for the day was Spruce Knob at 4,863 ft. The top of the mountain is covered with Red Spruce trees, thus the name … This one caused the most amount of stress during the planning stages as to get to the actual highpoint required about a 9 mile drive on unmaintained State Forest roads. If the roads were snow-covered and inaccessible, that would mean an 18 mile round trip hike/snowshoe from the closest access point. I was getting geared up for that and planning to alter our plans to accommodate the hike. I was glued to the weather reports and web cams as another storm was predicted to hit the area. Both Dad and I made calls to the closest ranger station and got two very different answers – one was basically an honest “the roads should be open as we just stocked the lake up there” and the second was a CYA – “we don’t advise driving up there.”

HMMM … trying to find a neutral party to get more real information, I contacted a local climbing/guide service and they said that there was absolutely no snow left in the high country and I could leave my snowshoes behind! The roads were clear and dry all the way up to the summit and the closest snow we saw on the whole trip was a patch near the Eastern Continental Divide.

We took our time to hike the 900 feet to the summit tower and Dad celebrated his 5th State Highpoint (including AK, WA, and OR).

Day 1 – The day has finally arrived! After flying to Seattle on Friday and participating in a mandatory gear check on Sunday, we arrive at the Alpine Ascents office at 5:00am to depart to the White River Campground/Trailhead, elevation 4350 ft. We make final arrangements and then begin the hike up the Glacier Basin Trail around 10:00am. The weather is slightly cool and cloudy which makes it nice carrying a 50# pack! After the 3.1 mile hike to Glacier Basin we begin to travel across the valley to the Inter Glacier. The ropes, harnesses, crampons and ice axes come out at this point in order to make it up the glacier to our first camp. We set up camp, cook dinner and then watch some interesting clouds form across St. Elmo’s Pass.

Day 2 – Day 2 begins as we break camp and travel a short ways up to the top of the Inter Glacier. At this point we shed our glacier travel equipment and move up the ridge past Camp Curtis to Camp Shurman at an elevation of 9500 ft. We set up camp after taking a lunch break, review knots and rope management techniques, have dinner and then go to bed early in order to leave for the summit at 12:00am.

Day 3 – Summit Day is finally here! We all get up at 10:30pm in order to be ready to leave Camp Shurman at midnight. After we are all suited up and roped in to teams of four the journey up the Emmons Glacier begins. Due to all the late season crevasses, what would be a fairly straightforward route up the mountain is actually a long, zigzagging traverse. There are initially a lot of “trenches” in the snow that we follow. These pathways have melted and frozen many times and were hard for me, with my short legs, to negotiate. .. HAHA! Luckily that didn’t last too long! We end up crossing many snow bridges and crevasses with only the assistance of our headlamps. It is probably better that way so we don’t see how bad they really are in daylight! During the journey up we are treated to the Northern Lights and an incredible sunrise. After many short breaks for water, food and warmth, we make it to the summit of Mt. Rainier at 14411 ft. after 10 1/2 hours of climbing. I didn’t do a very good job keeping my digital camera warm and consequently it froze up. Attached is the one summit photo that Todd was able to shoot for us. There were several other cameras that did work up there and hopefully we can share different perspectives. We take a few minutes to fuel up again and then begin our descent. We make it back to Camp Shurman in less than 4 hours! Dinner is quickly served and I fall asleep almost immediately!

Day 4 – We get up at 6:30 for breakfast and then break camp to get on the trail by 8:30. After a short scramble up Steamboat Prow we take the ridgeline all the way to Mt. Ruth. The park rangers recommended that we do not take the Inter Glacier route down as the going is pretty slick – mostly ice and difficult to negotiate going down. So we continue down the ridge into Glacier Basin and finally reach trees and vegetation! It has been a beautiful 4 days and we really lucked out on the weather. Everyone is in good spirits as we hike the final 3.1 miles down to the campground and our vans. We stop in Enumclaw for a Mexican dinner and it is back to civilization and the wonderful Seattle traffic! Thanks to our  Alpine Ascents International guides Eric, Todd and Winslow for a very memorable trip and one more notch in my training belt for Aconcagua in January.

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Once I “summited” Mt. Mitchell, I drove windy country roads for 120 miles to reach the Grayson Highlands State Park in Mouth of Wilson, VA. Mt Rogers (elev. 5729′) is located in the Mt. Rogers National Recreation Area of Jefferson National Forest. Of the three highpoints this weekend, this was the only one that really involved any type of effort. The 8.6 mile round trip trail was packed with families and many”thru” hikers as most of it is part of the Appalachian trail. Arriving close to noon at the parking lot I had to set a blistering pace as once I got off the summit, I had another 354 miles to drive back to the airport in Nashville.UGH

The trail was actually not the easy flat path that I had dreamed about – there was elevation gain, rock hopping, mud and water to negotiate and wet, mossy terrain near the top. But it was really a beautiful hike and worth the effort. The trail was varied – most of the lower trail was open pasture/grassland as it had been heavily logged off many years ago but the summit was 100% surrounded by trees and in a spruce and fir forest. The area gets a lot of rain and fog and had plants and flowers similar to the Pacific Northwest and there were even large groups of rhododendrons.

Another unique feature of the area is the herd of  “wild” ponies. Many years ago Shetland-type ponies were released in the area to keep the vegetation and grasses left from the logging in check. There is an association that looks out for the ponies and they keep the herd around 100 animals. Every year there is an auction to keep the numbers manageable. As you can see from the photos, they aren’t really “wild” and seemed to enjoy the humans.

Once again the impending thunderstorms held off until I was well on my way. If you are reading this and wonder why it has all the makings of a Joel Schenk marathon road trip, I guess I had a good teacher!

What was supposed to be an easy recovery hike from the hike up Mt. Marcy the day before, turned out to be an agonizing ordeal. Apparently I should have looked at the beta for this trail in a little more detail before setting out… The Vermont Long Trail to the top of Mt.Mansfield is 2.3 miles one way – that I did read. What I didn’t pay attention to was that the elevation gain in those 2.3 miles up was 2800′, making this the steepest hike of all the 4 that I was doing on this trip   :^(

Again, I started out early but the humidity in the forest leading up to the top of Mt. Mansfield was oppressive – it was already in the 80’s and I had sweat dripping down my arms the whole way up. Then the bugs arrived as soon as you slowed down so I had to get out the bug spray and take care of that. Once you get out of the treeline, the views opened up and a nice breeze arrived. It was a bit of rock and boulder hopping to the summit. As an alternative to get to this highpoint, one can take the gondola up from the ski area or a car up the Stowe Auto Road. By either of those methods your total trip along the ridge to the summit is 1.5 miles to close to 3.0 miles.

When viewed from a distance, the summit ridge of Mt. Mansfield appears to have a “Forehead,” “Nose,” “Chin” and “Adams Apple.” The summit at 4,393′ is on the “Chin.”

Hard to believe we were up and back from King’s Peak about 3 weeks ago and I am just now catching up! King’s Peak is the highest peak in Utah at 13,528ft, located in the High Uintas/Wasatch Wilderness area. We decided to spend a couple nights in the area, driving to the trailhead fairly early in the morning. As it was close to Labor Day weekend, we wanted to be off the peak by Saturday, at the latest by Saturday evening. The trailhead that we used (Henry’s Fork) is accessed from the Wyoming side and then you drop down a few miles into Utah to start the trip. The roundtrip was listed as 34 miles so we wanted to knock off at least 10 the first day. With 2000ft of elevation gain over 10+ miles, we were able to finish the first segment off in a few hours.    

  We found a nice place for our “base camp” in a meadow just north of Gunsight Pass – off the beaten path, close to the next day’s summit trail and about 1 mile south of the two traditional campsites at Dollar Lake and Henry’s Fork Lake. We ended up cooking some dinner and then settled in just before a passing thunderstorm hit.  

  The next morning we got up pretty early and began our ascent to the summit. From the guidebooks and comments on an internet climbing site (SummitPost) we found out that there were a couple short cuts that could shave as much as 6 miles roundtrip from summit day – a bit steeper but we were game! The shortcuts were fairly well marked with some ginormous cairns and we found it easy to follow the less-used trail up to the next basin. Once we made it to the top of Anderson Pass, the trail to the summit was a bit less defined and entailed mostly boulder-hopping along the way.  

The views from the top were wonderful and we saw a lot of potential climbs for next time/next visit/next vacation … we considered South King’s Peak as it was probably only about another 45 minutes away however it looked like another powerful thunderstorm was on its way and we decided to begin our descent.  

      In the photo above, King’s Peak is on the left and South King’s Peak is on the right.   On our descent, Joel had a bit more energy than I did and decided to scamper off to an adjacent peak (Henry’s Fork Peak). I ate and watched!  

  Joel with Henry’s Fork Peak in the background.  

  Looking down towards Gunsight Pass.  

    After making it back to our tent minutes before the rains came, were able to hit the trail home at a decent hour the next morning. As we were hiking out the numbers of Labor Day weekend visitors increased dramatically. We were glad to have had the foresight to plan the trip a few days before the holiday!   On the way out with King’s Peak in the middle.  

The last state highpoint of our Memorial Day week trip is located in the far northwestern area of Texas about 100 miles east of El Paso. Guadalupe Peak is 8,749′ high and is part of the Guadalupe Mountains. The peak and the mountain range were named for Our Lady of Guadalupe, the patron saint of Mexico. The mountains were the last stronghold of the Mescalero Apache, with the most famous of the tribe being Geronimo.

We camped in the campground at Pipe Springs which is right at the trailhead of Guadalupe Peak. We decided to do a quick hike into an area called Devil’s Hall the afternoon that we arrived.

Again we got up early the next morning and were the 2nd group up the trail. I think the key to really enjoying these desert hikes is to get up early so you aren’t hiking in the midday sun. The hike is 8.4 miles round trip on what was again noted as a moderately strenuous trail. Not really … I think of all of the moderate distance (5 – 10 mile, non-glacier) highpoints that we have done so far this could be my favorite … nice trail, great views and we even got to see several Barbary Sheep near the top. A very enjoyable hike to round out our Memorial Day week trifecta!

Another case of being in the right place at the right time … a business trip in the area facilitated the completion of 3 more State Highpoints … the first being Tennessee.

The Tennessee Highpoint is Clingman’s Dome. It sits in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and is at an elevation of 6643′. Unfortunately, the Garmin took me through Pigeon Forge , TN, to get to the park. If you’ve never been there, only one word … DON’T …  I can’t really explain the town except imagine taking the Las Vegas Strip, Branson, Knotts Berry Farm, Disneyland and Wally World, mixing them all up in a blender and then pouring the goop out in a street that never seems to end … I suppose if you had kids (and ample tranquilizers for Mom and Dad) it might be fun …

From the parking lot it is a 1.0 mile roundtrip jaunt up to the summit observation tower. With the promise of thunderstorms for several days in the forecast, I wasn’t surprised to get to the “summit” in clouds and fog. Not too many people up there as it was starting to get dark. Couldn’t see a thing! Got back in the car and drove to Asheville, NC, to be in position for the North Carolina Highpoint the next morning.

After licking our collective wounds (after our failed first attempt at Gannett Peak) we corrected our course and headed to the Black Hills of South Dakota. Custer, SD, is where the State Highpoint, Harney Peak is located. A pleasant time was had by all as we spent most of the next morning wandering around the Harney Range Trail System in Custer State Park. Our trail took us from the Sylvan Lake Trail head up to Harney Peak (elev. 7242′) past the Cathedral Spires, Little Devil’s Tower and back … at least Dan got one State Highpoint this trip!

Although my travels for my auditing role were basically stopped in November due to budget constraints, I was “called up” to help out on a new product innovation at a co-manufacturer outside of Atlanta in Stone Mountain, GA. Several missteps happened in this project and by the time the project team had a chance to recover and set a new production date, all the QA folks on the project were on vacation. So, the mad scramble started in Battle Creek to find a body to help out on the project. I think I was the only one in the group that had no more vacation left for 2014 so I was asked to help out.

To make a long story short, multiple delays ensued and instead of sitting in my hotel room over the weekend while the plant was shut down, I decided to make lemonade out of the lemons I had been handed. Driving NE from Stone Mountain, GA, I was able to hit the South Carolina Highpoint – Sassafrass Mountain, in a couple hours. The highpoint sits at 3,553′ and is about a 100 yard walk from the end of the paved road and the parking lot. Once on top, I could see nothing – fog and drizzle totally enveloped the summit. There is currently an initiative to set up some kind of tower on the summit in the future but right no there is a bench and a plaque on a rock. Not one of the most exciting highpoints but a beautiful drive up on long, winding roads.

At an elevation of 812′, Jerimoth Hill in Rhode Island ranks as the 5th lowest state highpoint.

After the tremendous effort of the venture to the New Jersey highpoint earlier this week,I decided that a basecamp and support staff would be necessary to make this summit. As we approached the summit we noticed it was starting to snow so we quickly made it back to the car. State Highpoint #1 for Tony, Natalie, Alexander and Xavier!