Peak Travel: Viewing the US from the highest point of each state

California’s Mount Whitney is the highest mountain in the contiguous United States. Reaching the windswept summit requires a strenuous hike of more than 20 miles round trip, rising to an elevation of 15,000 feet.

But for the 180 people who recently gathered in the nearby town of Bishop, Mount Whitney is on exactly the same level as Woodall Mountain in Mississippi, Panorama Point in Nebraska or Hoosier Hill in Indiana. Each stands tall as a state highlight.

“There’s Denali, there’s Rainier, there’s Hood, those are really tough peaks,” Shannon Brumund said. “But you can do a lot of peaks that are easy to do, that are a fun outing with the family.”

Brumund is the president of the Highpointers Club, a group dedicated to celebrating and climbing the highest peak in every state. “It’s partly about coming together as a group that enjoys these kind of weird hobbies that people have never heard of,” she said.

On the surface, “highpointing” may sound a bit pointless to those who don’t prioritize height. After all, why would anyone with enough skills to climb Wyoming’s challenging Gannett Peak at nearly 13,000 feet elevation also want to visit Britton Hill, a parking lot in the Florida panhandle at an elevation of 330 feet?

“We have this huge, unique, beautiful and diverse country, and many people don’t see much of it,” said Lucy Westlake. “And I just think highpointing is a great way to get around the country and have a purpose and a guideline on how to do it.”

In 2021, at age 17, Westlake became the youngest woman to ever visit every state highlight. She now writes a column for the club’s Apex to Zenith newsletter.

For most members, reaching all 50 is a life goal.

While some highlights are extremely physically challenging, others, such as Mount Washington in New Hampshire or High Point State Park in New Jersey, have rideable peaks.

And some can be logistically complex. The highest point in Illinois, Charles Mound, is located on a private ranch. But to cater to the height-obsessed, the landowners only allow access four weekends a year. “A lot of hikers will say this is the hardest highlight because you just have to time it,” says Floridian Rick Wise, who has summited with his dog Kika.

Carol and Greg Weiland came to Charles Mound from Ohio to continue their tradition of taking photos of their shoes at each research marker.

Two weeks before traveling to Illinois from Montana, Dee Winters climbed Utah’s 13,000-foot King’s Peak. “As a group, they encourage you to keep going and keep moving, and I think that’s important,” she said. “As you get older, you have to keep moving, you have to. Otherwise you’ll sit down and die. And I’m not ready for that yet!”

Atop Charles Mound, surrounded by soybean fields, it’s certainly picturesque, but there’s no superlative viewpoint, the kind where everyone says, “You have to see it.” It’s more of a geographical quirk that brought people here. “Yes,” said Ray O’Conor, who came from New York, “but you know, the scenery, the fields, the dirt roads – there’s a little bit of magic in almost every route that takes you to one of these places.”

It’s what brought siblings Lidy and Sjaak Van Schie from the Netherlands to the US for dozens of high-profile expeditions. When asked what kind of reaction they get at home when they visit a place no one has heard of, Sjaak replied: “Well, they don’t understand it. But we do, and that’s the most important thing!”

Lidy added: “The nice thing about highlights is that all those highlights are places you wouldn’t normally go.”

Places like Bishop, California. As Shannon Brummund explains, attending these Highpointers Club conventions and discussing all these highs and lows offers a chance to enjoy some middle ground. She said: “I think being part of the club has helped me realize that when you sit in a room with people and talk about something you love, everything else matters less.”

WEB EXCLUSIVE: Watch Charles Kuralt join Mitch Michaud in his quest to reach the highest peaks of Colorado and Kansas in a 1971 “CBS Evening News” report (YouTube video)

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Story produced by Kelsey Micklas. Editor: Steven Tyler.