A Tale of Twelve Summers

Preface Introduction One's journey often outshines the goal. Hence after reaching the highest points of all 414 western USA counties I am left searching for another project of equal or greater merit. There will be none. Oh, yes, Mount McKinley still beckons, plus dozens of lesser peaks. However completing all eleven western states (“Winning the West”) will always stand out as the premier achievement of my peakbagging career. I considered the content most carefully. Although there are many climbing guidebooks, none concern peakbagging and highpointing as generic concepts. I herein fill that void with a dual purpose book - define the peakbagger's hobby, emphasizing county highpoints; and tell my tale over a decade in the making. However this is not a county highpoints climbing guide as that information is well described elsewhere both in printed format and online at the cohp.org website. Rather, chapters devoted to highpointing review the hobby in general - yet with sufficient information to admirably serve the novice. Winning the West was a piecemeal process. Initially only the tri-state region Arizona, California and Nevada was deemed a reasonable end goal. Somehow I continued, extending my home glob with forays into neighboring states. They fell in-turn, roughly one state each summer. Years later only the northern tier remained - Idaho, Montana and Washington. Why not finish the job as Bob Packard had in 2004? We are a fraternity of two, the only people to achieve this frankly over-the-top list finish. Bob was my clear choice for reviewing the text. Synopsis The book has three Parts followed by numerous appendices. Part I is about peakbagging and highpointing with emphasis on United States county highpointing. Its Introduction defines peakbagging and highpointing as subsets within a continuum of pursuits. Chapter II describes the various flavors of peakbagging, all of which share the common trait of peak list objectivity - highpointing, topographic prominence and isolation distance. Chapter III is a historical review of county highpointing; Chapter IV a “nuts and bolts” description of the hobby's current state, with emphasis on basic information such as Andy Martin's “Bible”, online trip reports, The Rules, Front Runner Lists and completion maps. Part II is about Winning the West. Its Introduction reviews the entire project, and describes how the effort was documented online with elaborate trip reports and timestamped completion maps. There follows one chapter for each of the eleven states comprising the mountainous western U.S.A. Chapters are ordered chronologically, beginning with California (as Chapter VI) and concluding with Washington (Chapter XVI). Each chapter has a general introduction. An essay sometimes follows, written by a highpointer who also completed that state. A section on seasonality describes the optimal climbing months; followed by sections on required skills and access issues. The bulk of each state-based chapter is a selection of stories composed soon after their respective efforts, and posted online ever since. Some stories are about one mountain, others an entire journey. Each is a snapshot in time, reflecting the state of knowledge when composed years ago. Updates are intentionally not provided. A few stories are route descriptions with key latitudes and longitudes. As with the absence of updates, that content is retained for authenticity even though boring for the average reader. Notes and references conclude each chapter. Part III has two chapters on Alaska and Hawaii, included for completeness even though not part of Winning the West. Stories from both states appear as I finished the Hawaii county list in January 2013 and continue my dream of summiting Mount McKinley. Surprising to some, Texas has sizable mountains. Although I have climbed there and in South Dakota's Black Hills, neither state earns a chapter. Appendices A and B are time snapshots - a sample of county highpoint completion maps and of the county highpoint FRL (Front Runner Lists). Appendix C is an essay on the relative difficulty of completing the various western states. Although few will argue that Arizona is easy and Washington hard, the precise ordering of intermediate states is a subjective matter that requires a full explanation. Appendix D is a set of county highpointing recommendations as I have learned to practice them. There follows a Glossary of Terms with 330 entries. Typography and Word Selection Words and phrases that may be new to the reader are italicized in bold when first used, and are defined in the Glossary. The same font type may be applied to words that, although having occurred previously in the text, are used for the first time in a given chapter or section. Subsequent instances of the word are not highlighted. References to specific chapters are accorded bold print, e.g. Preface. Internet addresses are boldfaced, e.g. http://www.cohp.org. The same applies to individuals when first referred to; or, on occasion, when initially mentioned in a chapter or section despite having been previously cited. I am not responsible for "broken links" due to post-publication altered addresses. Grammatical errors within direct quotations are corrected. The style of writing and content are unaltered. Boldface color is applied for emphasis. Story titles are violet, chapter and story section titles are blue and story subsections for individual dates have red titles. Bold lime green is used for state completions - a choice becoming clear in Chapter IV. Dark red suggests a negative event or circumstance. Yellow and other light colors are not employed, even when desired, as they are barely visible against the white background: "yellow". Figure captions are blue to distinguish from nearby text, their figure numbers bold red. However a caption is violet when the adjacent text is a blue chapter or story section's title. Superfluous words are avoided with brevity of expression the goal. Specific words are shunned with an air of childish hyperbole unsuitable for a formal work - "awesome", "fantastic", "incredible", "unreal", "tremendous" and "unbelievable".