United States State High Points (plus DC)

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List Description

The fifty state high points of the United States are an increasingly popular peakbagging pursuit. There is a club (the Highpointers) and several guidebooks to completing this diverse list of peaks.

Of the fifty high points, five require real mountaineering skills: Mount McKinley (Denali) in Alaska; Washington's Mount Rainier and Oregon's Mount Hood in the Pacific Northwest; and Montana's Granite Peak and Wyoming's Gannett Peak in the Rockies. Another five or so (Rhode island, Illinois, Kentucky, and others) are on private land and require landowner permission.

Most of the remaining state summits are easy hikes or drive-ups. Hiking the cool forests of the Appalachians, exploring the windy, lonely high plains, and backpacking above treeline in the western mountains are all part of the great fun of this scavenger hunt.

This list includes the high point of the District of Columbia, which in many matters is a state equivalent.

Links

Selected Guidebook(s) for this List

  Fifty State Summits, Guide with Maps to State Highpoints (Zumwalt)

  Highpoints of the United States: A Guide to the Fifty State Summits (Holmes)

Caution: These books feature many of the peaks on this list, but may not have information on all of them.