Category: High Points

Mount WashingtonNew HampshireAugust  2013 By comparison, the summit of Texas has a metal pyramid and rocks and rubble.  Arizona has a sign and some rocks and rubble.  Rhode Island has a hand painted sign and a rock.  Virginia has some boulders.  New Hampshire has more people than you can shake a stick at, which is… Continue reading The Summit Attraction

Observatory Hill, the high point of PittsburghPittsburghPennsylvaniaDecember  2014 As we are wandering around this array of half-million gallon water tanks and the 63-story tall antenna at the high point of Pittsburgh, I wonder about the mysteries. How do they get the water into these huge tanks in the first place?  What are all those thingies… Continue reading Know it All

Spruce KnobWest VirginiaMay  2014 If you are expecting a child, I’m here to help you name it.  These days, parents seem to have no qualms about naming their children…  pretty much anything.  Why not?  I’ll supply you with nine names from the area we cover on this particular Highpointing trip, Spruce Knob and environs.  See… Continue reading How to Name Your Child

Panorama PointNebraskaJuly  2013 Standing on the highest land form in the state of Nebraska, looking southwest.  In the far distance, we can see the Rocky Mountains.  East and southeast holds the multitude of windmills of the Municipal Energy Agency of Nebraska, or MEAN, wind farm.  Looking west, bison. I understand also that this is the… Continue reading Plover Preservation

AlabamaNovember  2013 Before Lisa and I head out on our trip to Alabama, one of my students, whose vocal style hints of her formative years in the South, suggests that I be “real patient” when I attempt conversation with the folks down there. “Yeah, why’s that?” “They talk real slow,” she says, real slow. Reminds… Continue reading How We Talk Here

Mount RogersVirginiaJuly  2011 We start up the Rhododendron Trail which leads to Rhododendron Gap.  There’s a certain symmetry in that, don’t ya think.  The Rhododendron Trail follows a wagon road over the hill but we are on a re-route.  My guess is this new section was built to let the land recover from erosion caused… Continue reading Plant I D

Wheeler PeakNew MexicoJuly  2013 Halfway down from the highest high point we’ve climbed so far (13 161 feet,) in the nearby rocks, is a marmot. Before we see him, we hear his whistling.  Or maybe its his chirp, or yip, trill, cluck, bark or chuck.  We call his call by a lot of call names. … Continue reading How Much Wood?

Driskill MountainLouisianaJune  2012 Returning to the summit from exploring the dead end of a nearby trail, I log another first.  Perched up there, in the shadow of the eave of the signboard marking the summit of Driskill Mountain in Louisiana, is a black spider with a red mark on the back of its abdomen.  Hmm,… Continue reading Black Widow

Mount MitchellNorth CarolinaJune  2015 I have come upon many obstacles in the tens of thousands of miles I’ve hiked.  I’ve stumbled over downed trees, shimmied over boulders, fallen down gullies, dropped down steep inclines, nearly had my boots sucked off my feet by mud and slid down hills on my arse.  I’ve faced bear, wild… Continue reading Stop on a Dime

Driskill MountainLouisianaJune  2012 Back to our summit hike, here on the formerly French land of Louisiana.  To the right of our hiking path halfway to the top of the state is a beautifully formed, 30-inch high baldfaced hornet hive.  The baldfaced hornet, like the bald eagle, is not bald.  Its face has a pattern of… Continue reading Bald Faced Hornets