Washington’s 38 County Highpoints

Looking for a summit challenge?   The world’s most famous mountaineers take on the “seven summits,” climbing the highest peak on each continent. Adventurous nomads closer to home try to bag the highest points in all 50 states.  But if you don’t have the money and technical skills for the first goal nor the time for the second, you might still manage to reach the summits listed below.  They are the highpoints in each of Washington’s 39 counties.

Personal note: This may be the first WA-List I ever put together — long before I created the website and probably before any website existed anywhere. About twenty five years ago I was already acquainted with the seven summits when I ran across an article describing the “Highpointers” who scale everything from Alaska’s Mt McKinley to Florida’s highest “peak” (elevation: 345 feet) which is really just a slight rise a few yards from a roadway.  It occurred to me that I could afford neither the time nor money either goal required and thus conjured a poor man’s list: 39 county summits.  I sprawled topo maps on the floor and began comparing little elevation circles one jurisdiction at a time.

It turned out there were only 38 highpoints because King and Kittitas share a peak, and some are simply the slopes of taller peaks in adjacent counties.  I also learned that Skamania’s highpoint had changed in my lifetime. When Mt St Helens blew its top in 1980, it lost 1,322 feet of elevation and the title shifted to one of those slopes where the county line straddles the side of Mt Adams.

For our list today, we dug up my old list and re-analyzed data for the list below, making adjustments as needed.  I’m confident the locations and rankings correct, but source materials sometimes disagreed about numbers in the elevation column.  We pooled all the best sources, though, and feel assured that everything listed below is accurate to within ten feet.  Most should be right on the mark.

So how may county highpoints have I personally bagged in this “poorer man’s” quest?  One.  San Juan County’s Mt Constitution. Yes, although I compiled this list 25 years ago and have seen most of these summits, I have never intentionally set out to plant my flag on them.

WARNING:  If you venture out to claim these summits, then bravo!  Just be sure you remember that not all of the county highpoints are on public land.  Be respectful of landowners’ rights and ask permission when appropriate.

HIGHEST POINTS FOR EACH COUNTY IN WASHINGTON

PHOTO of the central core of major peaks in the Olympic Mountains (including Jefferson County’s highpoint) © Steve Campion.

SOURCES: My original list was compiled using USGS topographical maps.  It was tedious and, it turns out, only 90% accurate.  The biggest Cascade peaks were easy to spot, of course, but the lower elevation counties took some guesswork.  For the list above I began with my original list, then began consulting more recent maps, DeLorme’s Washington Atlas, and half a dozen climbing and highpointer websites (which have all appeared in the last 25 years; imagine that. *smirk*).  The most useful of the webistes were County Highpointers, Peakbagger, and RhinoClimbs. We consulted The Mountaineers website to mediate one disputed measurement. I didn’t use the official Highpointers site for this list because it deals with states rather than counties, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention it. The first man known to reach all the state highpoints in America is said to be Arthur Harmon Marshall (1886-1951), who summited the then 48 states over 17 years.  He started his national adventure in 1919 with — what else? — Washington’s Mt Rainier!

June 14th, 2014