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Kyle Hoelscher gets ready for the most difficult challenge in his quest to reach the highest point in each state
Sometimes it’s harder to get to the highest natural point in Illinois, with an elevation of 1,235 feet, than it is to reach the top of, say, Wyoming, which has an elevation of 13,809 feet, not to mention a number of glacial obstacles.
Gannett Peak, in Wyoming, is in a national park; gentle Charles Mound, in Illinois, is situated on private farmland and is only accessible, with the property owners’ graces, the first full weekends of June, July, August and September. You only have eight days a year to summit Charles Mound.
Aside from the time constraints of getting to the Illinois highpoint, of course reaching the top of Gannett Peak is more difficult, and Kyle Hoelscher can tell you all about it, he’s been there; you can go to his meticulously chronicled website (www.kylehoelscher.com) and see photos from the time he and some friends made the trek. In one shot, everybody in the group is smiling and posing for the camera near a crevice. Two hours later, another mountaineer fell to his death from the exact same spot. That sort of thing doesn’t happen at Charles Mound, and Hoelscher can tell you about that place too; he’s been there as well.
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Along with Charles Mound and Gannett Peak, Hoelscher has been to every other state’s highpoint in the continental United States. A highpoint is a natural peak; interestingly, the top of the Willis Tower in Chicago (formerly the Sears Tower) stretches higher up than the Illinois highpoint. It’s a sport called highpointing, and its enthusiasts range from the leisurely to the avid. Hoelscher skews toward the latter category.
Since 1999, as a freshman at Texas A&M when Hoelscher and some friends rented an RV and drove it to California to summit Mount Whitney –– the second tallest state highpoint outside of Alaska in this country –– Hoelscher has been checking off other state highpoints at a fiendish pace.
“I explain to people what I do on my ‘vacation,’” Hoelscher said, “and they just think I’m crazy because it doesn’t sound like much rest and relaxation. But there’s more to life than just rest and relaxation. There’s not much reward for sitting around doing nothing.”
Because of the proximity or easy accessibility for many state highpoints, Hoelscher could usually knock off two or three at a time. Two years ago, a 10-day trip to New England tallied nine state highpoints. A trip through the south to meet his sister in Destin, Fla., produced a few side trips to the highpoints in Alabama, Mississippi and Florida, which has the lowest highpoint in the country; at 345 feet, Britton Hill is honored with a rest area off the highway.
“Some mountains have really impressive markers. Florida is basically a rest stop on the side of the road in the panhandle,” Hoelscher said. “Anybody can go to the highest point in Florida, although those who don’t have ambitions beyond that wouldn’t care.”
When most people think about mountaineering, they think of harnesses and ropes and dangling thousands of feet in the air, and it can be that intense if you want it to be. But mountaineering can also be nothing more than hiking a well-paved trail –– sometimes there’s a parking lot, sometimes there’s snow.
On this side of the Mississippi River, the hills aren’t as dramatic as The Rocky Mountains or the Sierra Nevadas, and you can cross out many highpoints with day trips. Out west, like in Wyoming or Montana or Washington’s Mount Rainier –– these highpoints require technical know-how, experience, specific equipment, stamina, strength, lots of courage and time: Hoelscher’s trek to the summit of Rainier and back took six days; five for Gannett Peak.
Beginning in early May, Hoelscher plans to spend more than three weeks in Alaska in an attempt to summit Mount McKinley (Denali). Rising 20,320 feet, the peak is hands down the most demanding state highpoint in this country. And one of the most difficult in the world; Denali has the third highest prominence for any mountain on the globe, only behind Mount Everest in the Himalayas and Aconcagua in Argentina. Prominence –– the measure from the base of a mountain to its apex –– is an important mountaineering term. Some mountains may have a high altitude but a low prominence –– like Colorado’s highpoint, Mount Elbert –– because the base is already so high up. A low prominence may indicate a less strenuous expedition, it’s all about access –– sort of like in Illinois.
Compared to the other 48 state highpoints Hoelscher has reached, none of them pose the challenges Hoelscher will face trying to summit Denali. Aside from the daunting physical demands, the extreme weather alone, which can drum up 100-mile-per-hour winds and temperatures dozens of degrees below zero –– even in the summer –– can keep climbers from proceeding upward. Hoelscher said only about half of the people who set out to highpoint Denali reach the peak.
“This is full on expedition style mountaineering –– 21 days, you’ve got so much food and fuel and supplies. Some people say you don’t climb Denali, you camp Denali. Everyday we’ll spend half the day climbing. It’s basically steep hikes up glaciers,” Hoelscher said.
“So every day, you may spend only half the day hiking, and then you have to build a camp –– those 100-mile-per-hour winds will absolutely destroy a tent,” he continued. “When you get to camp, you’ve got saws and snow shovels, you’re basically building these giant walls that are taller than your tent all the way around. That may take you all day, and it’s a tremendous amount of physical activity just building these walls. And you’re not even going anywhere.”
Though Hoelscher, a 32-year-old Aylesford Place neighbor who moved to Lexington in 2004 to take a job with Texas Instruments, already leads a healthy and active lifestyle, he has been seriously preparing for this trip physically since last November (financially for much, much longer).
While he does a considerable amount of entire body strength training, a lot of focus goes into the strength and endurance in his legs; he does daily one-hour sessions on his home stair stepper wearing a 50-pound backpack.
“There was this one show on the Discovery Channel a while back called ‘Everest’ –– or something like that –– so sometimes, I’ll throw on one of those episodes and work out to that. If I get tired, I’ll be like, ‘I’m tired, but they’re still going, you’ve got to keep going.’”
If Hoelscher finds success on Denali, he plans on rewarding himself with a late-summer trip to Hawaii for a sojourn up breezy Mauna Kea, which would be the last state highpoint to conquer on his list. Though the mountain (volcano, actually) reaches 13,796 feet above sea level, the roads that lead to the Mauna Kea Observatories perched on the summit make the highpoint easily accessible.
Instead of being with three experienced mountain guides, as will be the case on Denali, along with seven other climbers, Hoelscher will be flanked by congratulatory family members and close friends who plan to come to Hawaii to be with Hoelscher during his culminating triumph. There may even be a luau, Hoelscher said.
But first there is Denali, and Hoelscher tries not to get caught up thinking about Mauna Kea.
While reaching the summit for most of the states’ highpoints isn’t very dangerous, a number of them do have some real danger, and Hoelscher has found himself in some hairy situations. Fortunately, his cool mind prevailed. Trying to reach the peak of Denali is risky, but for Hoelscher it’s one of those risks that make life more fulfilling and worthwhile.
And statistically speaking, the number of mountaineers who have actually perished on Denali (not even a hundred since 1903) is small compared to the number of yearly climbers. Still, it is more dangerous than sitting at home.
“It’s like everything else in life. Everybody thinks, ‘Oh, it couldn’t happen to me.’ You look at the statistics, and frankly, it’s not likely to happen to you,” Hoelscher said. “But it is more likely than the roof collapsing in on you while you’re on the couch, but I’m not the type of person who wants to live my life on the couch and be satisfied watching other people do cool things on TV.”
Statistically, an impassable mountain is much more plausible, and Hoelscher is at peace with the fact that even after all his planning and training and saving and travels and hardships, he may not reach the tip of Denali, which would forfeit his Hawaiian victory lap. He says that unless the experience is completely miserable, he will definitely try to reach Alaska’s highpoint again.
And then after Hawaii, well, Hoelscher isn’t sure what he’d do after that. If you’re a highpointer, there certainly isn’t a shortage of places high up there around the world. There’s always the American Territories, and the Seven Summits always beckons –– that’s the name for the group of mountains that make up the highest point on each continent. Denali is the North American member of the Seven Summits, so Hoelscher will already have that one scratched off his list, but he hasn’t convinced himself if that’s a challenge he wants to take on.
But he has convinced himself that getting up there, wherever that may be, will always be a passion and a goal.
“Mountaineering will always be a part of me. I will always continue to mountaineer,” Hoelscher said. “I see this as a big shift in my life, wrapping up one big chapter and starting a new one.”
During his ascent up Denali, Hoelscher will be using a SPOT GPS beacon, which sends out small breadcrumbs of data marking his position. Visit Hoelscher’s website, www.kylehoelscher.com, in May to follow his progress and read his travelogues from other state highpoint adventures.