Category: High Points

Cheaha MountainAlabamaNovember  2013 Hiking boots are an incredible invention.  The amount of pounding and impact that you put on your feet while hiking is hard to fathom.  What the heck, let’s try.  The average hiker, whatever that is, puts about eight psi, or pounds per square inch of pressure on the boots with every step.… Continue reading Boots I — Hiking Boots

Mount GreylockMassachusettsMay  2014 We think we are very close to the summit of Mount Greylock.  We think we are close because we’ve been climbing for half the day, but we don’t know how close because it’s so foggy that we can’t see a damned thing.  There is a big tower out there, they tell us,… Continue reading Oh Sam Peabody

Cheaha MountainAlabamaNovember  2013 This is some tough climbing.  It’s a 1.2-mile hike that gains 1143 feet in altitude.  What makes it more fun is that almost all of that uphill is in the second half of the hike and as you get closer to the summit, it just keeps getting steeper.  Okay, that’s what we’re… Continue reading Speaking French

Mount GreylockMassachusettsMay  2014 Through the burbs and suburbs and exurbs we go until we get to North Adams where we spend the night.  North Adams in Massachusetts, I believe, is the location of the southern terminus of the Long Trail, the oldest long distance hiking trail in the U S of A.  It was completed… Continue reading One N or Two?

On the drive from Mount Driskill to Mount MagazineLouisiana to ArkansasJune  2012 Highpointing racks up a lot of miles on the road.  Brings up random, but essential, existential issues.  To wit… Kermit + whiskey + cigarettes = Yoda. Or alternately… Kermit + Tom Waits = Yoda.

Shenandoah National ParkWhiteoak Canyon TrailheadMay  2023 Some recreational areas place signboards at trailhead.  These vertical information centers inform you of what to expect on your hike:  route finding, elevation, distance, landmarks, hazards, attractions and maps. As we approach this particular trailhead, and therefore a signboard, we encounter a woman with a furrowed brow, staring at… Continue reading How Tough Is It?

Clingmans DomeTennesseeMay  2013 Getting our gear and lunch together, we cross Clingmans Dome Road and pick up the Appalachian Trail within a hundred feet.  Turning left, we are now on the granddaddy of America’s long trails, the famous and fabled A T. Our destination, Clingmans Dome, the highest point in Tennessee. Immediately we pass four… Continue reading Stringbean

Pittsfield/Mount GreylockMassachusettsMay  2014 Herman Melville was the author of the big fish story called Moby Dick. One of the stops on our drive from Mount Greylock, the high point of Massachusetts, is a home in Pittsfield.  It’s called Arrowhead and this is where Herman Melville, the writer, lived. We briefly tour a small part of… Continue reading Herman Melville & Friend

Mount MitchellNorth CarolinaJuly  2011 Clearly, wilderness trails in the eastern United States are nothing like the sidewalk by your home, nor anything like the tiled floor of the mall. The trail is rough and uneven, an irregular surface marked with dips and holes, roots and rocks.  Hikers often realize that, for the past twenty minutes,… Continue reading Sneakers

Guadalupe PeakTexasMarch  2013 You won’t ordinarily find the Guadalupe Mountains on lists of “windiest places.”  And yet, the Guadalupe Mountains are known by some to be relentlessly windy.  How windy is it? I think back to my telephone conversation with Ranger Hal.  I called him weeks before our trip to get some preliminary information.  It… Continue reading Wind