backpacking, camping, caving, high pointing, hiking, hot springs, mountaineering, skiing and more!
Woodall Mountain, Mississippi, lies at 806 feet MSL and is ranked #47 in elevation among US Highpoints. This would be my 21st highpoint of 2004. Woodall is a drive-up and since I was packing my mountaineering gear, I decided to make a bid on the north face. It was tough but I made it! From … Read more
Mount Davis, Pennsylvania lies at 3,213 feet MSL and is ranked #33 in elevation among US Highpoints. This would be my 11th highpoint of 2004. Mount Davis despite being over 3k feet is also a drive-up to a lookout tower deep in Amish country. Davis would be my second high point of the day after … Read more
Ebright Azimuth, Delaware (Hey Joe!) lies at 448 feet MSL and is ranked #49 in elevation among US Highpoints. This would be my 10th highpoint of 2004. Although in Delaware, Ebright is really in SW Philly. I spent a few days in upstate in Little Meadows, Pennsylvania where we lived on a century farm in … Read more
Mount Frissell, Connecticut (South Slope) lies at 2,380 feet MSL and is ranked #36in elevation among US Highpoints. This would be my 9th highpoint of 2004. Mount Frissell is in a cohort of states with Maryland, Nevada, and Oklahoma whose highpoints sadly aren’t at the summit of a mountain, but merely the highest point on … Read more
Campbell Hill, Ohio, lies at 1,550 feet MSL and is ranked #43 in elevation among US Highpoints. This would be my 8th highpoint of 2004. Campbell is on the campus of a vocational school, housing a cosmetology school at the time of my visit. At the time, this was the easiest high point I’d visited … Read more
Hoosier Hill, Indiana lies at 1,257 feet MSL and is ranked #44 in elevation among US Highpoints. This would be my 7th highpoint of 2004. At this point I had retreated from the east coast and spent a couple weeks with my brother Kevin in Columbia, Missouri. A bit lost, I didn’t want to return … Read more
Mount Mansfield, Vermont lies at 4,393 feet MSL and is ranked #26 in elevation among US Highpoints. This would be my 6th US Highpoint of 2004. After the sufferfest of skiing down Greylock the day before, we decided to snowshoe our way to the top of Vermont. This would prove to be an excellent decision … Read more
Mount Greylock, Massachusetts lies at 3,491 feet MSL and is ranked #31 in elevation among US Highpoints. This was my 5th US Highpoint of 2004 and my second highpoint that I skied after Wy’East. Although there was a closed auto road to the summit, we chose to skin up through the woods on a hiking … Read more
Jerimoth Hill, Rhode Island lies at 812 feet MSL and is ranked #46 in elevation among US Highpoints. This was the 4th stop during my cross-country trip with Teewinot and “Nancy.” At the time of my visit, the landowners wouldn’t allow access, and the “acceptable” alternative was this high point on the highway, which is … Read more
High Point, New Jersey lies at 1,803 feet MSL and is ranked #40 in elevation among US Highpoints. This, the third US Highpoint of my 2004 cross-country drive from Montana to Connecticut. This is another walk-up and is located in High Point State Park and features a 200-foot obelisk that was sadly closed when we … Read more
Hawkeye Point, Iowa lies at 1,670 feet MSL and is ranked #42 in elevation among US Highpoints. Hawkeye is located on a farm in southwest Iowa. This was my second highpoint during a cross-country trip with Teewinot and “Nancy.” This is a “jump out of the car, take a photo, leave” type of place. The … Read more
Black Elk Peak, South Dakota lies at 7,242 feet MSL and is ranked #15 in elevation among US Highpoints. I climbed Black Elk Peak, then called Harney Peak (presumably after some white colonizer asshat) with Teewinot and an ex-girlfriend as the first stop on a cross-country trip to move her from Montana to New England … Read more
October 6th after work we dropped off the 4Runner at the Concrete Beach at Magnuson, and then loaded the canoe on the hilariously small Crosstrek to drive the few blocks down to our local Lake City Beach Park for a one-way paddle. This was the first year we paddled anything from Lake City, and the … Read more
Got a couple days of “SDP” in last week on Lake Washington! The winds had some waves going so there was no way I was going to try to stand up, not to mention having a 70-pound DEG on the boat with me!
Here’s an alphabetical list of some airports that are potentially great for camping in the PNW. In addition to those, I leave you with a list of ones that are less desirable and the reasons I think as much, in case you’re wondering. In all cases, get yourself some earplugs from Loop, you might need … Read more
I bought a canoe! $150 for this old 17-foot Coleman! I’ve only been on a canoe THREE times in the last 25+ years since leaving Missouri where we used to go canoeing in the Ozark’s almost every weekend. Just a few days later we took it for its inaugural trip on the Lake Sammamish “River” … Read more
Katt and I last did “the Puyallup” soon after we started dating over a decade ago, and we went back in 2025 to check it out!
This, our third ski and soak vacation after our honeymoon to Iceland, and Montana with Brian and Caitlin. We skipped last year (2024) but were back to our old tricks, this time in central Oregon. For this ski and soak, we skied Willamette Pass and Ski Hoodoo and soaked at the natural McCreedie Hot Springs … Read more
Katt’s earliest memories were as a toddler on Kodiak Island where her dad was stationed in the Coast Guard, but had never been back. We decided to “break the mold” by doing a four-day trip to Anchorage in February 2025. Anchorage – Day 1 On day one we flew non-stop on Alaska Air to Anchorage, … Read more
US Highpoint #38! Eagle Mountain, Minnesota lies at 2,301 feet MSL and is ranked #37 in elevation among US Highpoints. I took advantage of a work trip to Mayo Clinic in Rochester MN to fly from MSP up to Duluth and then drive to the Eagle Mountain trailhead in January. Fortunately, the road to the … Read more