This makes 21/50 for me and brings my season of State Highpoints to an end for the year. 12 states in 5 months has been one heck of a ride! Guadalupe is one of the easier ones, I think! …right up there with Humphreys, Mansfield and maybe even Marcy. You climb a mere 2,800′ over…
Tag: hiking
Appalachian Trail to Mount Greylock
From the trailheat at Connecticut’s Mount Frissell, we headed back north to Williamstown, Massachusetts, for the next stop in this 2021 Summer Series of State Highpoints: Mount Greylock The plan was simple once we arrived in this quaint New England college town: buy some flip-flops, grab dinner, dry our shoes with a hairdryer, and scope…
Wicked Wind of the West on Wheeler
This was our second peak of choice after doing Boundary the day before. The original plan was to do a Whitney-Boundary combo but the wildfire situation in California forced them to close all their trails. That’s when our goal changed to 3 peaks in 3 days with Boundary and Wheeler in Nevada, followed by a…
An Unexpected Trifecta in New Hampshire
The second in my COVID Fall Series of State Highpoints took place in New Hampshire on the glorious Presidential Range. This prominent peak was my primary reason for coming to the East Coast from the very beginning. Vermont’s highpoint was only added at the last minute when I saw how close it was to where…
Fall Series starts in the East on Mansfield
Since September was a bust with Colorado, my focus turned to a plan I had in the East for October. This idea began taking shape back in May after COVID shut down the world and killed my EBC trip. At that time, I thought we would surely be through all this Coronavirus stuff by Fall…
Kings Peak and a Utah Trifecta
#3 in my COVID Summer Series of State Highpoints is Utah’s own, Kings Peak. The goal was for my neighbor Chad and I to do the Utah Triple Crown; which is all three of our tallest peaks, in order, in one day from a basecamp. Those peaks are Kings (13,528′) , South Kings (13,518′) and…
Third Reunion with Borah Peak
An annual family reunion on my wife’s side leads me to the second in my COVID Summer Series of State Highpoints. On the 3rd weekend in July, for as long as she can remember, families from her mother’s lineage gather together for the Armstrong Reunion in the remote community of Mackay, Idaho (pronounced Mackie; pop….
Summer Series kicks off on Humphrey’s
Accomplishing state highpoints wasn’t a serious goal for me until COVID killed all kinds of other plans I had this year. A few of these have already been on my bucket list for a while now, but not with any kind of serious effort to git’em done. So with COVID making the door clear and…
Backpacking Zion’s West Rim Trail
I know the West Rim Trail can be done as a day hike from Lava Point, but we chose to spread it out and slow it down by starting at Wildcat. That made it a 3-day, 2-night trip which turned out great! Here’s our itinerary: DAY 1: Travel + Hike to Wildcat Camp Our first…
Setting Goals Drives More Focus
Someone recently asked, how do you get in the habit of doing regular hikes? My suggestion was to set a goal. Last year, I wanted to beat my previous year’s mileage by 100. This year I set a goal to do 50 miles/month. I’ve seen others set goals for # of peaks or # of hikes…