Harpers Ferry, Maryland

At the bottom, elevation gain: 0ft

There was a little white Terrier that was climbing the mountain with more grace than I was...  Last night, Nate and I drove to Maryland in search of a mountain with an altitude of over 1,000 feet.  We want to see our progress bar go up a bit.  And Nate wants to open a prize for reaching his first camp.

An internet search should have made it simple. Hikes are labelled with altitude gain, but we discovered a wrench in the works.  Some people judge "gain" by subtracting the lowest altitude from the highest altitude (this is what we are looking for), others count the altitude change on the way up and in the descent for a number twice as large (this one makes you feel accomplished), and a third group counts every step in an upward direction (although these numbers are lower than the previous... they are still inflated).  In the end we did the math ourselves using topographical maps.  If you are going over "Everest", padding your altitude points is cheating.

So our search finally lead us to the Maryland Heights Hike (aptly named).  The website lists it as a gain of 1600ft. (It uses the every-upward-step-counts method) but we bought an app that would keep track and then compared it to the topographical map (which agreed) and our resulting gain was a WHOPPING... 1,150ft!  The only disappointment...

At the top.  Notice and differences in our apparel?

was that Nate is still 300ft shy of opening his prize for reaching "Icefall" on our Everest to-do list.

Will we ever do a hike that gains over 1,000 feet in the first 1.5 miles again?  Good question.  I had to stop many times and Nate gave me his hooded coat so that my ear would stop throbbing from the 40 degree temps and light breeze.  Last night, we stayed in a hotel in Maryland and watched the Everest disaster movie Into Thin Air.  The movie is second rate, but the adventure is gripping and tragic (five chilling deaths).  I kept thinking how glad I was not to be on the real Everest as we trekked up that steep mile and a half.

Nate conquering Maryland Heights

The remaining 3.5 miles were totally beautiful!  We could see Harpers Ferry and the river with each step.  The sun shone on that side of the mountain and it was very pleasant.

Before we left the area we stopped at a gas station.  It struck me as oddly third world looking.  Inside I had a "God really sees me" moment.  The store owner was from Nepal and was selling "Top of the World"  Everest T-shirts and other Nepalese paraphernalia.  Encouraging.  We took advantage of the real Everest coming to us and now own the authentic T-shirt!

750 more feet today!

This evening we picked up my nephew, Ty, and the 5 of us took an evening hike to Hawk Rock.  The weather was perfect and the view was beautiful. I asked the kids to take a "kissing picture" and Nate came at me so fast, I nearly fell off the edge!  It gave everyone a good laugh, since I didn't go flailing off the 750 foot drop :)  We did a retake of that picture.  Great evening!

The first 50 feet...

Going around our block earns us 50 altitude points (not to mention the 1.5 mile sunset walk).  We have done it twice this first week for a total of 100 feet toward our 11,335ft goal.