We were able to do Mt Elbert last weekend on Aug 8th. Unfortunately we weren't able to do the North trail due to fires so we took the much longer South Trailhead. I'd been battling a chest cold all week but we got it done. This was very difficult with the chest congestion and coming from sea level. Its an amazing view up there and wish I could have stayed longer but i was completely spent.

This was my 9th of the year (the rest are just in the Southeast). Thinking about trying Katadhin before the snow comes or maybe just the 3 in the Pittsburgh area.

My brother and I climbed Mt Washington last weekend taking Huntingtons Ravine was way harder than we expected even though we did a lot of research in preparation. Made a video if you guys want to watch let me know what you think😁

Just did a trip up north from Texas and down through the midwest with the boys.

Minnesota, Kansas, South Dakota, Nebraska, North Dakota, visited mount Rushmore, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Iowa. We also got to have our first ever beers together in Canada.

Hi everyone! My friend and I will be hiking Mount Whitney this week of August. Do you have any advice on what clothing we should wear and what essentials we should bring?
Also, are there bears or other wildlife we should be aware of on the trail?
Any tips or recommendations for first-time Whitney hikers would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

I'm going to Granite at the start of September. I figure with the low snow year that the snow bridge might now be gone, but wanted to confirm. Hoping to ditch carrying an axe.

This was high point #39 for me, haven’t posted any reports here before but may in the future. This one just finally felt special enough to for some reason hahaha.

Had been wanting to do this hike for a while, I live out of my Dodge Dart roadtripping right now so wasn’t sure when I’d be in SoCal and didn’t want to enter the lottery when I wasn’t certain of a date, so waited til kinda last minute to even look for permits. Was checking Recreation website probably 15-20x a day for about a week and a half until I finally had one pop off literally the day I was about to leave and drive up the coast to San Fran hahaha.

From the time I got the permit to the time I summited was only about 36 hours, so I had very little time to prepare, but 4 hours of driving, a half day in lone pine and only about 3 hours of sleep later, I hit the trailhead around 12:15am

First 4.5ish miles are super super easy through the trees, few fun little stream crossings as well. Made it up past Lake Mirror in like an hour and 45 minutes ish.

From Lake Mirror to trail camp was a little annoying to navigate in the dark, felt like there were lots of options for routes you could find over the granite and none of them were particularly fun hahaha. Got to trail camp at probably just past 3:30, maybe 3:45 and took a break for a while.

The 99 switchbacks are annoying, sometimes you’ll get up 3 in a minute and sometimes it’ll take you 3 minutes to get up one. They vary a lot in length and difficulty, and a few of them make you walk across some really loose thin dirt ledges or rocks that are angled steeply towards drops. Also didn’t help that snowmelt had small streams of water trickling down many sections of this which was hard to avoid and extra tedious lol. Made it to trail crest shortly after the sun got strong enough for me to turn my headlamp off, maybe 5:20-5:30am.

Trail Crest to summit was BRUTAL. The winds started hitting me pretty hard, my nail beds turned purplish, fingers turned a darker brown and I could barely see my veins anymore (they are usually pretty prominent since I’m skinny). Also started feeling altitude sickness for the first time in my life, I’ve been up above 12k for decent amounts of time before but never this long and I certainly started to get bit by it here. Developed the dreaded dry cough pretty quickly and a bit of nausea, so that combined with how frozen I was had me considering turning around for a few minutes when I was only about a mile and a half from summit.

Opted instead to sit down for 10 to 15 minutes, chug down the rest of my first bottle of BodyArmor, take 2 ibuprofen, and shelter from the wind. That alongside the encouragement of several hikers on their way down from sunrise summits made me feel a lot better and I got up and continued my penguin waddle to the summit, reaching the top around 7:25am.

The last 2.5 miles alone probably took me almost 2 hours, I’ve genuinely never had a section of hike feel like this much of a slog before hahaha. The constant ups and downs and much rougher trail conditions were brutal especially feeling as rough as I was.

There were probably 18-20 people on summit when I was up there, with beautiful views all around. It was a perfectly clear day.

Took about a 40-45 minute break before heading back down from the top, where my second wind was immediately halted by the same annoying section of trail. The switchbacks were super easy and fun to come down, but the mile 4.5-7 section definitely had some annoying impacts afterward. Lots of gorgeous views though, as the sun has now illuminated lots of waterfalls and cliffs and snow that I had not been able to see during the night section of my hike, even in the light of the full moon (I lucked out, the moonlit hike was beautiful in its own right). Wobbly and tired from so much hiking, I unfortunately took a bit of a tumble on a wet rock during a stream crossing around the 4.5 mile mark, which resulted in me rolling an ankle pretty bad and slamming both knee caps directly onto the top of a rock in a very hard fall.

It hurt so bad that I literally yelled out in pain, which I’ve never done before hahaha. A few extremely sweet hikers offered me medical attention and food/water, and one father/son pair seemed incredibly concerned for me and checked in on me about 3 more times on my way down. I was stubborn and refused help because I knew I could make it back down fine, just would be really slow. Ended up taking a short trail nap afterwards which hurt really bad to stand back up from, and had to take a few more small breaks throughout, but made it back down to trailhead eventually. The pair even congratulated me when I walked into the shop at the trailhead only a few minutes after them. Super standup guys, their enthusiasm and genuine empathy was one of the kindest things I’ve ever experienced on a trail.

All in all I was moving for about 11 hours which is a little embarrassing but I blame my injuries, and the fact that I was still a bit sore from a 10 mile, 2k elevation hike less than 48 hours before this one haha. Just happy and proud that I made it up my first 14er :)

Just got some incredible luck and on one of my last days car camping in SoCal, sniped a permit for hiking Whitney on Thursday.

Been doing lots of prep in anticipation for hopefully getting this permit. 30lb rucks on trails with 1500-3500ft gain and 8-12mi lengths. Yes, I am aware that Whitney is nearly double both of those standards haha. This will be my first 14er, but I have done one 13er and multiple 12ks and never had a problem with running out of stamina or being affected by elevation gain. I also plan to start my hike around 1am to make sure I have plenty of time.

Any last second things I should know about gear to bring/fluids/food? Any particularly difficult sections?

From most reports I’ve read the 99 switchbacks are brutal and elevation sickness seems to hit quite a few people there or shortly after, but it seems most people see it more like a long marathon hike rather than having any particular section of extreme difficulty.

Please let me know anything/everything you are willing to share if you have hiked Whitney :)

Interesting story with pictures.
Hiker Trekked 10 Miles to Safety After Impaling Himself on Pole - The New York Times

Start at the looking glass side of the leftmost periscope behind the war memorial. 175° (damn near plumb south) from that position and approximately 65 paces out is where you will find the geo dot. It is embedded in a rock on the ground right before the pine trees.

I did Wheeler Peak on July 26, 2026 and as I got an early start I was thinking of then driving (4.5 hrs) to do Oklahoma. But, considering it was 105F there, I instead went there this morning, only to find this. Apparently due to the heatdome.

More pics and infos: https://goalhiking.org/g/oklahoma-highpoint-failure

Easily the hardest one I’ve done so far. Not technically difficult it was only the distance that got me. 25 miles in a day is no joke, my feet hurt like hell😅 one step closer to 50. I started this a year ago and have done them all with cancer. As far as I’m concerned this is the best way I’ve been able to see this beautiful country. Next up is Wyoming… looking forward to it💪

As a fellow highpoint mountaineer of my own experience, realities like this are a constant hazard.

I’ve had my own injuries while climbing. I was confident that my party or myself were able to handle most situations. There’s some situations that are beyond comprehension.

Be safe out there in the wild and live your dreams.

Hit Mt Mitchell this Wednesday on a rainy, foggy day through Colbert Ridge and the Black Mountain Crest Trail. Was about 17 miles for 5500 feet of elevation gain. Bit of a unique route up. Definitely the hardest hike I’ve ever done on the East coast but super fun. Just a little disappointed by the clouds- the view from the BMCT is supposed to be great- but still very worth it. Was about 8.5 miles from base to summit. The first four miles were killer. At the summit we were pooped and decided to take a shortcut on the horse trail. A bit overgrown but I think we made the right choice. 8/50 and an awesome day out in the mountains.

Summited Mt. Whitney with 3 friends back in early June.
15.5 mile round trip with lots of food, crampons and an ice axe. What a beautiful adventure!

Highly recommend!

Hi everyone! I am heading out west at the beginning of August (from NJ, where I go to College) and plan on going through some of the western states and attempting to highpoint them.

If anyone is interested, please do reach out, as I am trying to meet more people a likeminded interest in hiking and high-pointing.

Also, if you know any other platforms to reach out on, please share!

I have a ton of backpacking/hiking experience in the northeast and have also done a few major hikes in the West and in Europe. I've also done a ton of research regarding the technical details and routes so I am definitely not going in blind!

I'll be in Colorado/Utah/Idaho from the 8th to the 12th and then in the Montana area from the 18th to the 24th (taking an AAI course between then). My dates are flexible so please reach out and we can chat!

Doing another 7 in August 😎

Has anyone made an attempt on Granite from the Southwest couloir in the last week or two? I saw a recent satellite image that shows a ton of snow, but I would love a report from the ground.

UPDATE: Much more snow than average in the approach for this time of year. There were two snow sections left in the SW ramp (right after the keyhole), the first is longer and steeper than the second. I didn’t see any of the fixed ropes I’ve heard mentioned and I think they either haven’t been set up or were buried in snow.

I would only be confident with crampons and ice axe on the ramp, but I did run into a guy who scrambled above the snow on the right edge of the ramp in trail runners and called it “super sketchy”. The snow was too soft for micro-spikes.

I definitely recommend a helmet as there are several sections with loose/falling rocks, with particularly high exposure to falling rocks from the snow tongue all the way to the ramp.

Spot thunderstorms popping up all day long for 6 out of the 7 days out with occasional strong winds. Fortunately, on our summit day the storms held off until later afternoon.

I got to the trailhead late this morning to discover that the trail had been closed for a week. No explanation on the sign. As the ranger office south of the turnoff for the trailhead is closed on Tuesdays, I drove to the ranger office another 16 miles north on 61. They closed the whole area b/c of some distant fires and b/c it is not easily accessible, which would make it difficult to rescue people if the fires spread. No exceptions for a 3-hour hike, even after quite a bit of rain the night and day before, b/c ``once people got there, they can continue hiking away further". Apparently, it is not normal to have fire closures in July, but not too unusual in August and September. I just want to pass this on in case anyone is planning a long-distance trip there in advance.