We plan on parking at around 9:00 and starting our walk then.

Technology is an amazing thing. I uploaded the pictures to our server while driving on Interstate 95 between Bangor and Newport in Maine.

The photos in this post are courtesy of Tony Rowell and John Ackerly and are copyrighted by the photographer as indicated on each photo. I scaled them down, added a little sharpening and increased the jpg compression for the web.

Sorry for the delay in posting these pictures. None of Team HighPoint were on the Mountaineer's Route so, we didn't have immediate access to the photos. It looks like all of the climbers on that route had a great time. I'm sure there are many of us that were on the Main Trail that would have loved to join the second team.

The Mountaineer's Route Team started the day before the Main Mount Whitney Trail (MMWT) team. On the first day they hiked into Iceberg lake (12,200 ft). Here they set up camp and probably sorted gear for their ascent the next day.

The next day they got up and had breakfast before beginning there climb at around 8:00. I know when we finally got a radio call from them saying they were getting started, several of us were pretty envious. After all, by 8:00, we had already covered almost 9 miles and over 5,000 ft. of elevation!

The Mountaineer's Route(MR) was covered with snow above Iceberg lake and required the use of crampons and ice axes. In the next photo, you can see that the climbers were also roped to each other for additional safety.

Here the climbers are nearing the summit of Mt. Whitney. The MR climb took about 4 hours with both the MR team and the MMWT team reaching the summit within 1 minute of each other!

The final pitches of the MR are the steepest and from what I hear the most challenging. Sure looks like a lot of fun!

On the summit, the two teams opened some champagne that had been carried to the top. From what I hear John Ackerly made sure that everyone was wearing at least a little champagne.

Last but not least is a photo of the two teams together on the summit

Hello 50 for Tibet supporters,

For those of you following the North East portion of the High point adventure be advised we have changed the schedule as follows:

After climbing Mount Marcy on the 5th, we are going to attempt to climb Mount Greylock in Massachusetts, Mount Frisell in Connecticut and Jerimoth Hill in Rhode Island in the same day on the 6th of July.

We are hoping that this will provide a little more of challenge as well as give us an extra day to spend exploring Boston before flying home

Hello 50 for Tibet supporters,

Here are a couple of pictures from our recent climb of boundary peak.
When I get copies of the other team members photos, I'll be sure to post them as well.

After much deliberating about which of the two routes listed in the Wingers book, Highpoint Adventures we would take, we were presented with a third route. As we got above the marsh like area at the trail head and rounded the bend above tree line, we noticed a snow field that appeared to terminate only a little below the ridge leading to the summit.

The snow field we climbed is just visible above Jenn's right shoulder. Of course because we didn't follow an established trail, we had a little route finding to do on the summit ridge, but nothing too complicated.

After that it was time for all the photo's that seem to be almost required on any of our trips. Here's one I took of John with Montgomery Peak in California directly behind his back.

Hello 50 for Tibet supporters,

Now that the first leg is finished, Jenn and I are at home sorting our gear and washing our trail clothes. It's also back to work today (which is sort of weird after spending a week driving and climbing).

As soon as I get home from work tonight, I'll start posting pictures that I have of Boundary, Humprey's and Wheeler. As I start getting pictures from Steve and John, Ill be sure to post those too.

For those of you subscribed to the news letter, Jenn should be working on that too. It'll probably go out in the next few days after I get all of the various photos together so that I can send out the best of them in the newsletter.

Anyhow, off to work.

The day before the Mt. Whitney climb, there were still some people who needed some brush up on their ice axe and crampon skills so we drove up to this beautiful area near Bishop. The weather was beautiful and we found a small patch of snow perfect for our training needs.

Jenn helped out people who had never put on crampons before, showing them how to fasten them to their boot.

She then demonstrated basic French technique on the snow field while I showed Keith Pitts from ICT some basic self belay and self arrest with the ice ax.

After Keith had the basics down, Denise Clegg and her friend Sandy had a go at it. Everyone did really well and, as usual with this type of training, had a wonderful time sliding around on the snow.

One of the most common questions we get is "Where is the high point" in a state.
I've found a .kmz file (Google Earth's file format) on the keyhole forums.

If you are interested in seeing exactly where the high point in each state is,
download Google Earth (this is a really cool program that
I recommend regardless).

Then, get the .kmz file from here.

I did not make this file, so all credit/blame should go to Hill, who is a member of the Google Earth Community.

There is a great topic with information about each high point (along with pictures) on the Google Earth Community forum.

A lot of questions about the high points are answered in that topic.

Enjoy!

We are getting pretty close to having a final design ready for tee-shirts. Not having any budget for design (or production for that matter), we've decided on a pretty simple layout.

The front will have the 50fortibet logo on the upper left.

The back has an U.S. map with the approximate highpoint locations marked.
The map will be very light with the high points and elevations printed over the top of the map.

I've made the map myself using a .svg map of the U.S. touched up and colored in Inkscape.

It should be interesting to see how the mock-up looks as none of the people working on it are professionals.

When we have the design finalized, we will post some pictures.

Today is Team Highpoint member (and my wife) Jennifer's birthday!

Anyone who would like to leave a comment wishing her a Happy Birthday please do so!

Hello everybody!

Well, I just sent Bill Finch with Creative Flavor an e-mail requesting that this web site be made live. It was surprisingly more work than I belive we were all expecting and it's a pretty exciting feeling to finally be done creating the site.

For those that have had a sneak peek at the site during it's construction phase, please be aware that some changes were made to the schedule today. The effected dates are all of the North Eastern peaks in July as well as Mounts Hood and Ranier in August. Please be aware that the schedule posted is a representation of our plan at any given time and will change as we make adjustments. We will be sure to post changes to the schedule both in the HighPoints Schedule as well as here in the blog.

Anyways, in case we haven't said it enough yet, thanks a lot Bill for helping make this site a reality.

David