Mountains

[RangerWickett]

In west Texas, in a park known as Blackgap, there is a place called Stairway Mountain. I climbed it, the first and only mountain I have ever climbed. Right now, I'm listening to Led Zeppelin and writing fiction, and I thought of it.

Tell me of your mountains.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

Stone Mountain.

I climbed it once willingly...then got dragged up and down it at least five other times over the years. Gods I hate that rock.

 

[Desdichado]

In my experience, there are no real mountains in Texas. Which is one of the state's very few failings, however.

You want mountains, you want Colorado, Utah, Austria, etc. I went hiking as a teenager near the Durango-Silverton railroad; in fact, we rode that halfway down the line, hopped off, walked a day or two to our base camp and then scaled the 4th (or was it 5th?) highest peak in the Continental U.S. That was a mountain. Made the biggest hill in Texas look like it was built by a guy with a shovel and a wheelbarrow.

Anyway... er, what was the question?

 

[Tinker Gnome]

Sometimes there is a mountain with a dog sleeping on it in the hallway outside my room at night.

 

[Connorsrpg]

Live in a small rural town in coutry Victoria, Australia. The town Wycheproof, is built around the foot of the 'smallest mountain in the world'...well so they say, though sometimes it is the second smallest..???

I have climbed it may times I live on the street heading up to the 'mountain' and it is called Mount Street Though I can't say I have been listening to any mountain songs lately, though I do like Jane's Addiction's 'Mountain Song'...though if were written about Mount Wycheproof they may have called the song "Pimple on the Horizon Song"

Hows that?

Connors

 

[Krieg]

Tell me of your mountains.

I'm from Ohio where the highest elevation is a paltry 1,549ft above sea level. So we are flatlanders, not western Indiana/Illinois flatl...but flat enough.

However, many years ago I was lucky enough to go to one of the USMCs more interesting schools, the MCMWTC (Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center) near Bridgeport California. MCMWTC is about 6,700 ft above sea level while the training areas top out near 12k ft. I attended both the mountain survival & cold weather surival courses as well as the assault climbers & mountain comm courses.

Armed with that knoweledge I and a few other Marines took some time off to hike to the summit of Mt. Whitney which is the highest point in the lower 48 at 14,491 ft.

While TAD in Japan we also had the opportunity to reach the summit of Mt. Fuji which is 12,387 ft.

Neither Whitney nor Fuji are overly difficult climbs (as far as mountains go) and with the proper safety precautions most healthy individuals should be able to reach the summit of either.

Occasionally I think that someday I would like to work up to the point where I could try Everest...and then I see the number of folks who die on that mountain each year and quickly regain my senses.

 

[ASH]

The Colorado Rockies... The national park by Estes Park, CO. Amazing, breathtaking snow capped monsters. Climbed the trails of the park on and off for a week. Never really climbed a mountian, but I can understand the appeal.

 

[cybertalus]

My mountains are the Appalachians. They're some of the oldest mountains in the world. Compared to the Rockies they're probably just foothills, with the highest peak being only about 6600 feet above sea level. I've been to the top of that mountain, Mount Mitchell, although it's mostly a drive followed by about a 500 foot walk to the actual peak. It's usually cold and damp up there, which makes it a great place to be in the summer. Although not nearly as tall, Mount Pisgah makes for a more challenging three mile round trp hike, a hike I did every year for thirteen years.

The mountains around here are most beautiful in May, when everything is at its greenest, and October, when all the leaves change. I usually hit the Blue Ridge Parkway in May and give it a miss in October, because that's when all the people from far away exotic places like Florida and South Carolina show up and demonstrate their fear of hills, curves, and Parkway etiquette by driving very slowly and refusing to pull off at overlooks to let anyone around them. The mountains are sometimes quite pretty in the winter too, but I usually miss that because when the weather makes them pretty it also makes them dangerous to travel on.

 

[AuroraGyps]

Tell me of your mountains.

Um, you DO know that there are women on these boards, right? Don't worry, I'm one of them and I'm not offended, but it's you might want to re-phrase that question.

 

[Dark Jezter]

I live in central Utah. No matter what direction you're looking in, you'll be seeing mountains, and I've climbed several of them in my day.