Climbing Eagle Mountain |
 After I’d climbed Eagle Mountain, I was intrigued to learn that although it is the 37th highest of the fifty US state highpoints (see the number in the green square), it’s nevertheless regarded – as this extract from the America’s Roof website shows – as the 18th hardest state highpoint to climb (see the red square). Pondering these facts had a major effect on me. I concluded that as I’d already climbed Denali / Mt McKinley – the highest and hardest of the United States’ highpoints – I would try to climb all thirteen of the US state highpoints that together constitute the ten highest and the ten hardest of the state highpoints to climb. The thirteen peaks account for all the US state highpoints that are over 10,000 feet / 3,000 metres high. My quest to climb the remaining twelve of the 13 highpoints began on Wyoming’s Gannett Peak in July 2006 and ended nearly eight years later on Hawaii’s Mauna Kea. It should also be noted that I climbed ten of the remaining twelve peaks together with Eric Hodge, my Canberra-based climbing partner, to whom I’ll always be extremely grateful. |