Vinson Massif – Antarctica’s High Point Earth’s basement – Antarctica – is most famous for the South Pole and being extraordinarily cold. The pole put a massive target on the continent for adventurers, leading to the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. The planet’s harshest climate caused those explorations to be rather gnarly. One of the two expeditions that […]
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Mount Elbrus – Russia and Europe’s High Point When it comes to mountains, Europe is nearly synonymous with the Alps. Those majestic, stark crags might be the world’s most beautiful and they include the planet’s most recognizable peak, the Matterhorn. Despite its robustness, Mont Blanc, the tallest mountain in the Alps, is not the highest point in Europe.
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Doyle’s Delight – Belize’s High Point An English name for a Central American High Point might seem a bit out of place, but Doyle’s Delight is not a translation from a Spanish moniker. Of the seven nations between Mexico and Colombia, all but one feature Spanish as an official language. Belize, the odd-country-out, achieved independence from the
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Pico de Orizaba – Mexico’s High Point Mexico does not often garner the reputation of a nation with a lot of mountainous splendor. The sandy biomes – deserts and beaches – yes. Soaring peaks – not so much. As we learned when Humphrey Bogart and Walter Huston visited the Sierra Madre, however, perhaps that non-mountainous stature
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Mt. Logan – Canada’s High Point The clouds parting toward the northeast revealed several giant peaks not before seen…One stranger, rising in three white domes far above the clouds, was especially magnificent. –Israel C. Russell Most students of the mountains know Alaska’s Denali is the highest point in the United States and North America. What about the
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Katahdin – Maine’s High Point Then here’s a hail to each flaring dawn!And here’s a cheer to the night that’s gone!And may I go a-roaming onUntil the day I die! — Robert Service, A Rolling Stone This was my Everest.In my fifth or sixth year on the planet, I embarked on a climb of Katahdin with my
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Carrauntoohil – Ireland’s High Point Ireland’s western coast is strewn with fantastic mountains. The southwestern tip of the island contains the famous Ring of Kerry, a loop that tours the Iveragh Peninsula of County Kerry. This region is a quintessentially Irish mix of rock and green. The mountains and the sea intersect in a sensory delight. Nestled
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Guadalupe Peak Redux – Texas’ High Point Around 300 million years ago, western Texas and southeastern New Mexico were covered by an inland sea, called the Delaware Basin. Over time, a reef developed around the edge of the water. In these systems, calcium carbonate from organisms with shells forms limestone rock. Sometime during the Cenozoic
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Mt. Marcy – New York’s High Point Northeastern New York is dominated by the Adirondack Mountains. Of the hundreds of summits that rise from the massif, none stretches higher into the sky than Mount Marcy. With an elevation of 5,344 feet above sea level, Marcy clocks in at 21st on the list of state High Points; it’s also the
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Pico da Neblina – Brazil’s High Point The Andes and Aconcagua, in particular, dominate the conversation about South America’s mountains. And rightly so, as the chain is the world’s longest, while the continental high point is the second-tallest of the seven large tracts of land. Yet, a continent as enormous as South America undoubtedly contains other mountainous
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