Mountaintop adventures
September 10, 2022
Around 3:15 am I drove through Minturn, past empty streets and darkened windows. Then, I began the long winding dirt road up towards the Halfmoon Campground. The sun wouldn’t make an appearance for another three hours at least. But even still, I arrived at a bustling trailhead filled with headlamp beams and dimly lit truckbeds.
Continue reading “Mount of the Holy Cross via Halo Ridge”
September 4, 2022
I left Lake City around 4 am, keen to get an early start on the day’s fourteener double-header. Lake City provides a comfortable base camp for no less than five fourteeners. And in fact, I had just hiked another, Wetterhorn Peak, the day before.
Continue reading “Redcloud and Sunshine Peaks”
September 3, 2022
The late afternoon sun poked in and out of view as I sped along Colorado 149 into the heart of the San Juan Mountains. It occasionally ducked behind increasingly rugged mountain peaks and silhouetted stands of aspens. Suddenly, the road dipped into a canyon directly beside the Lake Fork of the Gunnison. It was the Friday of Labor Day Weekend, and I saw maybe two other cars.
Continue reading “Wetterhorn Peak (Colorado)”
August 21, 2022
Standing in a gas station parking lot near Buena Vista, we had a decision to make. The original plan involved driving down to the Sangre de Cristo to bag Kit Carson Peak. But moody clouds and bouts of rain had given us doubts.
Continue reading “Huron Peak”
August 12, 2022
I arrived in Adams, Massachusetts, on the tail end of my New England high point road trip. There amidst rolling farmland and the post-industrial towns of the Berkshires, lies Mount Greylock. The 3,489-foot peak rises head and shoulders above any other summit in Massachusetts.
Continue reading “Mount Greylock via the Bellows Pipe Trail”
August 10, 2022
Vermont’s tallest peak. Mount Mansfield, holds a special place in my heart. We grew up skiing on its lower slopes, at Stowe, and visited the area numerous times in both winter and summer. There are layers of history to this mountain, from rum runners to the aprés glitterati of the mid-20th century.
Continue reading “Mount Mansfield via Hell Brook”
August 6, 2022
I set off from my campsite around 4:30 am. The beam of my headlamp produced a glowing cone of refracted light as it passed through the thick, foggy air. I signed the trail register at the ranger station. And then I began my trek towards Katahdin.
Continue reading “Katahdin and the Knife Edge via the Cathedral Trail”
August 5, 2022
Talk to hikers in the Eastern US and Baxter takes on a seemingly mythical quality. Up there, deep in the heart of the Maine Woods, lies Katahdin. The peak sits surrounded by think, wild forests. The wilderness in turn sits surrounded by vast tracts of forest, like the “hundred-mile wilderness.” It’s the terminus of the Appalachian Trail. The end of the line.
Continue reading “Sandy Stream Pond (Baxter SP)”
August 3, 2022
I visited Mount Frissell this summer on a trip home to New York’s Hudson Valley. Being just an hour from my hometown, Frissell actually ranks as the very first state high point I ever hiked to. But I came back in 2022 to get pictures.
Continue reading “Mount Frissell and the Connecticut High Point”
August 2, 2022
I grew up roughly an hour from Hunter Mountain, in New York’s pastoral Hudson Valley. But ironically, Hunter would become the very last mountain I would hike among New York’s 4000-foot-plus set. Growing up, we never skied Hunter (“too many New Yorkers!”), and chose the Adirondacks over the Catskills for vacations (“too many New Yorkers!”). If there’s one thing New Yorkers despise on vacation, it’s other New Yorkers. Especially ones from farther south.
Continue reading “Hunter Mountain via the Devil’s Path”