#highpoints

How many of the state #highpoints have you been to?

How Many Of The 50 State Highpoints Have You Been To?

If you’re looking for a popular peak bagging pursuit, the 50 state highpoints is certainly an excellent challenge. The state highpoints range in elevation from 345′ (Britton Hill, Florida) to 20,310′ (Denali, Alaska). In reality it’s a collection of unique places that includes towering summits, drive up peaks, private land, and both remote and…

One of my favorite walks takes me into the hills. East of the San Francisco Bay, above the houses and trees that coat the flatlands and lower slopes, I walk a trail that snakes through some of the East Bay’s remaining hilltop open space. For most of the year, the ground is yellow and cracked, covered with tall trees and dry, brambling brush. The trail is always steep. I have to keep my eyes on the ground to keep from falling. But after twenty minutes of walking, when my breath is getting ragged and beads of sweat are forming on my upper lip, the tree-line ends. The path widens, and I can stop, catch my breath.  I can lift my eyes from the ground beneath my feet.

 And suddenly I see where I am. I see the hillside falling away before me, morphing into the houses, streets, hospitals and parks of Oakland and Berkeley. I see the morning traffic gridlock of commuters moving slowly onto the Bay Bridge. I see massive tanker ships moving international goods in and out of the Golden Gate. I see the peaks of San Francisco and Marin rising across the water, dark against the sky.

 I see these things and realize I’m not just trudging up a hard-packed dirt trail. I’m standing on the undulating ridge that edges the eastern side of the Bay Area. I’m next to one of the biggest estuaries in the world, a place where sweet meets saltwater, where the mixing of dissimilar things has been happening for a long, long time. I’m standing at the edge of the North American Continent, staring at the expanse of the Pacific. It’s this kind of seeing, so particular to high points, that helps me understand again where I am in the world, how I fit in the bigger story of life in this region, this country, this planet.

 It’s often too easy to forget. We’re visual animals – if you can’t see it, it’s akin to not existing. Living as I do in the flatlands, where there’s no clear view to the waters of the bay, where the colors of the sun setting against the horizon are blocked by highways and buildings, it’s easy to stay focused on my small corner of the world. The extents of my apartment, the annals of my commute to work, the contours of my street – those become my frame of reference for how the things operate. But the places we live in are more complicated than that, shaped by forces – physical, temporal, social -- greater than what I can see and understand from my day-to-day life.

 Which is why these high places are important. By physically raising us up from the day-to-day, they shift our perspective. They help us get outside of ourselves, to remember that we’re part of a larger system, a bigger story of the give and take between humans and the lands we live in.

-During the surgery, when the heart began beating on its own after being on bypass.

-Seeing how passionate Dr. Ryan and Dr. Hodakowski are for their respective professions and how willing they were to teach us.

-You can save three lives with one blood donation!