After a 24 hour delay in our arrival we finally made it to Hilo.  Today we headed up the Saddle Road to the Mauna Kea Access Road for our first day of training and to acclimate at just under 10,000 feet.  We drove through heavy fog and light rain, but once we arrived at the Visitor’s Center the sky cleared up.  Absolutely beautiful… We spent two hours there exploring and getting used to the Mauna Kea Trail and the altitude.  Andrew did some drone filming while Tom and I ventured out to the mountain trail.  As you can see in the two photos below, the views were awesome.  The first photo was taken at the Visitor’s Center looking over at Mauna Loa.  And the second pic was taken at the trailhead to Mauna Kea.  It was fun to be above the clouds!  (p.s. for those who don’t do Facebook I will continue to post on this blog so everyone can follow the journey!).  Stay posted…

Tom Murphy is posting updates on our journey this week on his sweethearts and heroes face book page.  Click on the link below to follow us!

S&H Face Book

Aloha!

 

 

I had decided that I would head to Greylock Mt (MA) the day after Thanksgiving.  The weather looked fantastic!  I was visiting my friends Mary and Michael in Brattleboro who encouraged me to go to the high point of Connecticut (CT) as well as Greylock, because it was fairly close and the weather really was looking favorable.  So I took them up on it and headed for Greylock first.  I took the Cheshire Harbor Trail up to the summit.  The trail was absolutely beautiful and I could see why Henry David Thoreau was inspired to write walking the woods of this mountain.  The views at the top were spectacular…

As is required, I put my hand (a body part needs to touch the bench mark in order to claim you summited the high point) on the memorial tower which sits on top of the bench mark.  Then descended in good fashion.  Off to CT.  After traveling a remote mountain highway I finally saw a couple of vehicles parked off to one side which looked like the trailhead.  There was no markers to know if I had the right location and no cell coverage!  I cautiously headed up the trail and finally met up with other hikers who assured me I was heading in the right direction.  I was relieved to see the tristate (NY, MA, CT) marker I had read about in the guidebooks.  I then made my way to the high point of CT, which is located on the south shoulder of Mt Kissell.  And there it was!  The mound of rocks, the pin, and I happily signed the summit book, ‘Trainwrekk Jakkie’.  Two klimbs in one day!!

It’s off to Hawaii and Mauna Kea for high point #6!  Aloha!!!

My climbing partner and I in training…

Mount Whitney. CA – After numerous training runs on Mt Mansfield and racing up Mt Washington over the years, I decided to try something new.  Having completed the Badwater 135 Ultramarathon in Death Valley, Mt Whitney was the logical choice!

I completed Mt Whitney on July 21, 2012 (having started the day before) and finished the mountain in under 24 hours with my climbing partners Joel Pfanstield and Nate Patneaude.  It was very cold and clear at the top.  The views were spectacular.  And no ice or snow!!

Successfully completing Mt Whitney made me think I’d really love to do the natural high point in all 50 states.  So I joined the Highpointers Club to make it official and challenged a friend, Tom Murphy, to come climb Mauna Kea with me.  He accepted the challenge.  Tom is co-founder of Sweethearts & Heroes, an anti-bullying campaign, and decided he would  raise money for this cause during our climb.   You can check out their website at http://www.sweetheartsandheroes.org.  We will be attempting our climb early December and will be joined by Andrew Ackerman, a film producer from Off The Map Media, who will be filming our climb.  We should have lots of cool photos and footage for everyone to enjoy!

You might wonder why the heading of this post uses a K instead of a C.  Back in the 1980’s, the C on Jack Longacre’s (Highpointers Club’s original record keeper of official finishers of all 50 states) typewriter broke, so he started using K instead.  In honor of Jack’s efforts I will attempt to include that tradition as often as possible.  And since officially signing into the Highpointers Club, my trail name has officially change from ‘Ridge Runner’ to ‘Trainwrekk Jakkie’.

Hope you enjoy the posts as I go along this new journey…