This Page Needs More Prominence!
Highpointing & Peakbagging
Don’t tell anyone, but this is perhaps my favorite pursuit. Moreso than museums. If I had the time, I’d devote a lot of time to these lists. As life would have it, what with two little kids and a job and all that, these are pretty much life-long pursuits. But I’m okay with that.
Special note 1: My subtitle above is one of my favorites on this entire site.
Special note 2: As with everything on CTMQ, no matter what I’ve done in my life, these lists began anew for me in 2002 when I started doing this stuff with my future wife. It just makes sense to me for some reason.
Atop Mt. Monadnock, September 2017
Let’s Climb!
Links take you to the intro/explanation pages for each list
Connecticut…
- Connecticut Highpoint: Mt. Frissell
- CT’s 10 Highest Peaks
- CT County Highpoints
- CT’s Geographic Extremes
… And Beyond
- 50 State Highpoints Project – Every state has a highest point to climb!
- New England’s Hundred Highest Peaks (NEHH) – This list includes all of the NH48 and NE67 4000 footers plus 33 more.
- Adirondack 46’ers (ADK46) – The 46 major peaks in the ADK’s. Not all have trails but hey, one is named Nippletop.
- Catskills 3500 Club (CAT35) – 35 peaks all above 3500 feet. And not too far away; though several are trail-less.
If I am able to complete the three lists above, I’ll also have completed the following:
- New Hampshire 48 (NH48) – The 4,000 footers in New Hampshire
- New England 67 (NE67)- The 4,000 footers in New England.
- Northeast 111/115 (NE111) – All 111 peaks (plus 4 historical screw-ups) in New York and New England over 4,000 feet.
Let’s throw a few more in for fun:
- 52 With a View (52WAV) – 52 peaks in NH under 4,000 feet with great views
- Terrifying 25 (T25) – White Mountain trails with slides and scrambles
- New England Fifty Finest (NEFF) – Captures the 51 summits with the highest topographic prominence in the region. And my friend Cumulus REALLY likes this one, so this is for him.
There are a bunch more in the region – especially in the Adirondacks. This facebook group does a great job of keeping track.
Cumulus says
October 4, 2017 at 10:36 amThanks for the link. I think there’s three reasons I like the NEFF so much.
First, it’s a challenging list. It has seven bushwhacks (or eight if you get offtrail like I did), and they’re mostly true bushwhacks, without the herd paths which develop on bushwhacks to peaks on more popular lists. Also, being more obscure, beta not only for climbing the mountain but for finding the trailhead is not as available. For some of them, just getting to where you start to climb the mountain was a real challenge. Luckily, I had a friend who had done them and was a great resource (and joined me on some of the hikes).
Second, it’s a purer list. An elevation based list needs some criterion based on prominence or distance to define what counts as a peak. For instance, the NH4Ks require 200′ of prominence. These criteria are necessarily somewhat arbitrary, and are dependent on what measuring system you use. For a prominence based list like NEFF, though, the main requirement is the only requirement, and it’s totally independent on your measuring system.
Third, it’s an obscure list. Now that I’m one of the couple dozen or two people who have ever completed it I’m an expert.
Cumulus says
October 4, 2017 at 10:46 amAlso, I’m interested in how you know about the Terrifying 25 list. Do you know the Herrs? Do you follow their blogs?
In any case, if you’re going to include trail based lists, in addition to peak based lists, you should add redlining the White Mountains, as well as redlining the CFPA blue trails, which I know you’re working on.
Cumulus says
October 4, 2017 at 10:48 amRegarding two comments ago:
s/dozen or two/dozen or so