PEAK PERFORMERS
Climbing team scales all 50 states’ highest points in record time
Two men last week set a record for climbing to the highest point in each state in less than 50 days.
Mike Haugen, a 31-year-old middle-school teacher from Denver, joined Seattle architect Zach Price, 30, scaled Mount Rainier on July 22.
Then they flew across the Pacific to finish their 23,684-mile cross-country mountain-climbing blitz July 25 on the 13,796-foot summit of Hawaii’s highest point, Mauna Kea.
There they celebrated the end of a 45-day, 19-hour, 2-minute quest to break the record for climbing, walking, and driving to the top of the highest point in every state.
Backed by the Coleman Co. and other sponsors, the climbers started on Mount McKinley on June 9 and continued for nearly 15,000 driving miles across the U.S. in a Toyota hybrid SUV.
The pair broke the record of 50 days, seven hours and five minutes set by Ben Jones of Lynnwood, Wash.
Their adventure is part of a program of outdoor-equipment maker Coleman to get kids physically active and to fight childhood obesity.
“We wanted to do something that focuses on our country because there are so many places to get outside,” Haugen said. “We decided to showcase everybody’s backyard.”
The race clock started ticking June 9 when the pair reached the summit of Denali, or Mount McKinley, in Alaska. Then they flew to Florida, where they met Denver student Lindsay Danner, who would accompany them on 40 summits.
They started slowly, Haugen said, but dropped a few rest days and drove a few nights to get ahead. On June 17, they visited the highest points of four states Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee.
In Delaware, the summit was a spot on the side of the road. And in Florida it was 345 feet above sea level.
“We were looking at tufts of grass, trying to figure out which was highest,” Haugen said.
By the time the climbers reached Mount Rainier, they were on home turf. The climb was Price’s sixth time up Rainier and Haugen’s 63rd. Haugen works summers as a climbing guide on Rainier.
“Some of the big mountains, like McKinley, were very difficult,” Price said. “You go through every emotion that you can imagine. It’s like all of your life is compressed into that one climb. Sometimes you’re extremely happy, sometimes it’s extremely strenuous, sometimes it’s easy, and sometimes it’s kind of scary.”
Price said the pace was exhausting.
“There were a couple of moments on a few of the mountains when we were really tired and had to keep moving,” Price said. “When you’re climbing, or crossing snow fields or glaciers, or scrambling over rocks, those aren’t really well-marked routes.”
After reaching the last summit in Hawaii, the climbers said they planned to “even out their farmer tans” on a beach.