My Highpoints and Tripoints

As of 2018 I have visited 7 highpoints of the 50 United States:

1. Hawaii - Mauna Kea
2. Florida - Britton Hill
3. Indiana - Hoosier Hill
4. Arkansas - Magazine Mountain
5. Ohio - Campbell Hill 
6. Nebraska - Panorama Point
7. Missouri - Taum Sauk Mountain

I have visited 6 tripoints where the boundaries of three or more states meet:

1. Arizona - Colorado - New Mexico - Utah (known as the Four Corners)
2. Indiana - Michigan - Ohio
3. Illinois - Kentucky - Missouri
4. Colorado - Nebraska - Wyoming
5. Kansas - Missouri - Oklahoma
6. Arkansas - Missouri - Oklahoma

A Walk to the Top of Taum Sauk Mountain - The Highpoint of Missouri

Taum Sauk Mountain, Taum Sauk Mountain State Park, Missouri
October 14, 2016

The Mina Sauk Falls trail head starts at a graveled parking lot,
making it a short walk to the top of Taum Sauk Mountain.

The Taum Sauk Mountain highpoint is on the way to Mina Sauk Falls.

A 1,000-foot long concrete sidewalk leads you from the parking lot to the Missouri highpoint.

At the end of the sidewalk is the highest point of natural elevation in the state of Missouri.

"Climb" is not the most accurate verb describing
how you get to the top of Taum Sauk Mountain.

The highpoint of Missouri has a boulder, marble tablet,
trail register, and a bench to rest after the "climb".

In 1991 the Missouri Association of Registered Land Surveyors identified the top of Taum Sauk Mountain as the highest elevation of Missouri at 1,772.68 feet above mean sea level.

Google aerial image of the highpoint of Missouri (blue diamond) on top of Taum Sauk Mountain, showing the route of the sidewalk from the parking lot to the highpoint.

A Tripoint and a Highpoint in One Fell Swoop

Laramie County, Wyoming
Weld County, Colorado
Kimball County, Nebraska
July 7, 2013

Old Texas Trail marker in Pine Bluffs

Getting There

Here I am barreling down Interstate 80 soon to cross the Wyoming-Nebraska border like I have done a dozen times before. I continued going straight the dozen times before, but for this trip on the freeway I have planned my own detour. Twelve miles south of I-80 are two places on the geographer's bucket list, and I am now taking the time and effort to find those places before I continue heading east on the freeway.

I exited the freeway at Pine Bluffs, Wyoming, drove through town, found a historical marker for the Old Texas Trail, and now headed south on Laramie County Road 164 towards Colorado. As I started to feel like I was getting close to Colorado, I looked for the telltale signs of the state boundary line between Wyoming and Colorado. There were no signs welcoming me to Colorado (and no signs behind me welcoming others to Wyoming), but I knew I entered Colorado when things underneath me changed. I traveled from Laramie County Road 164 to Weld County Road 105, and the road transformed from pavement to a dirt / gravel mixture. A change in road maintenance is a sure sign of going from one governmental jurisdiction to another.

Mauna Kea - The Highpoint of Hawai‘i

Mauna Kea on the Island of Hawai‘i
November 20, 2007

My first state highpoint was an actual mountain summit. However, I have to put an asterisk next to it since I did not do any climbing and by choice I decided not to venture the last two hundred yards or so to the top. Mauna Kea on the island of Hawai‘i is the highest natural elevation in the state of Hawai‘i at 13,796 feet above mean sea level. Unlike most other state highpoints, you can actually view mean sea level below you and can start your journey at tide level at the sea’s edge. I started my journey on a beach near Kailua Kona and then drove to the tour operator that would take us to the top of Mauna Kea.

Magazine Mountain - The Highpoint of Arkansas

Magazine Mountain, Mount Magazine State Park, Arkansas
November 25, 2011

The trail head to the highpoint of Arkansas

After recently checking off #44 of the states’ highest points, I wanted to continue to get higher and higher with my highpoints. I continued the trend of bagging the lower highpoints by detouring from here to there. This time the here was Texas and the there I was going to was Indiana. Arkansas was on the way and the highpoint of The Natural State was not too far from the interstate. Driving in from the north, at least I was able to see the highpoint from afar although the particular spot did not stand out. Magazine Mountain is a flat-topped plateau which looms above the surrounding terrain.

I Came, I Saw, I Conquered

Britton Hill, Lakewood Park, Walton County, Florida
March 29, 2010

I came to Florida, not to do daring feats or register lasting achievements. I came to Florida with simple plans: to visit a dear friend and to ride an airboat in the Everglades. As I entered Florida from the north from Alabama ...

I saw a small plus (+) sign, snuggled next to the Alabama state boundary, challenging me to the Highest Point in Florida. It was near a major highway not too far off my intended path. I asked myself why would I want to climb this mountain, and I answered it the same as the famous Alpinist George Mallory, "Because it's there." I pointed my truck westwards into the setting sun and sped towards the Florida peak to get there before the dusk. As the sun was nearing the horizon behind me, a sign by the highway led me to a country road and the County park that encompassed this high land of Florida. I parked my truck in the lot of Lakewood Park, and I saw the challenge that laid ahead of me. I was not deterred, and ...

Hoosier Hill - The Highpoint of Indiana

Hoosier Hill, Franklin Township, Wayne County, Indiana
October 21, 2011

Although 912 feet higher in natural elevation than Britton Hill in Florida, the trek to the highest point in Indiana is as blasé as Florida's high point when it comes to mountain climbing. Hoosier Hill is one of the highpoints that is privately owned, but thanks to the property owners and a county road, it is easily accessible. I came to Hoosier Hill by way of a scenic detour on my way back to Nappanee, Indiana from a conference in Dayton, Ohio. North of Richmond near the northern border of Wayne County, the hill is really just a slight rise in the undulating countryside, but I guess you need to name these highpoints and Mole Hill just won’t do.

Campbell Hill - The Highpoint of Ohio

Campbell Hill, Bellefontaine, Ohio
May 29, 2012

“Are you a highpointer?” The question, despite me being on top of Ohio’s highpoint, caught me by surprise. I hemmed and hawed and sputtered, “No, not really. But I’m here because of this being a highpoint.” As he replied that he was a highpointer, I quickly realized there is no hemming and hawing about being a highpointer. Either you are a highpointer or you are not. And it dawned on me that I was indeed a highpointer.

Highpoints

Geography is a discipline that can be easily consumed by the layperson. And you can easily construct plenty of lists to devour later. The longest rivers, state capitals, countries, highest peaks. Who doesn't have their own lists of geographical places? The lists can go on and on with the topics and depth only limited by the interests of each person. When I was younger, I spent many hours compiling in my memory lists of all of the countries and all of the states and their capitals and soon more memories of the earth’s geographical orders.  A skill not much in demand in the working world, but those memories concreted my interest in geography which eventually led me to my profession as a town planner.

A souvenir of Arkansas's highpoint

A fun part of travel is to check off or collect places from your own personal lists. When I was a child, I would mentally count and list the states my family traveled across during our moving junkets between Air Force assignments. (17 - California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, slivers of West Virginia and Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, a quick airplane touchdown and transfer in New York, Florida, the boot-heels of Alabama and Mississippi, Louisiana.)

Some of these lists are shared by multitudes of people, and the highest points in each of the United States is one such shared list. So many people dream of climbing to the tops of these points that there is are support groups dedicated to the task. The group of people have been called peakbaggers and highpointers and other names, and their dreams also include those who yearn to climb the Seven Summits of the World, the highest points in the 58 counties of California, or any other list of highpoints you can compose.

I have never had the urge or even an inkling to tackle the list of highest state elevations. I know, regardless of how much time and effort in bagging these peaks, that Mount McKinley / Denali in Alaska would be a 20,320 foot high wall that I would or could never climb. However, I have had some recent and easy opportunities to arrive at the highest elevation of four states. Of course these highpoints are considered some of the easiest ones to reach, and that’s why I had the opportunities to check them off my personal list.

Will I continue to seek the top of highpoints of even more states? Of course, the geographer inside of me says.



Web Links

For more information on the highest points in each state and an organization of folks dedicated to the climbing of highpoints, visit the website of highpointers.org.