r/Highpointers

Two weeks ago I came here for advice about hitting Kings in a day, and received some good tips. Really appreciate the help.

Thanks to the warm winter, conditions weren’t terrible, but they definitely were still winteresque above 10500 feet. I started the hike at 0600 coming up from my hotel at mtn view. Snow started filling out the trail about 6 miles in. At about 1200 I started post-holing pretty heavily in the snow. It was slow going; round trip was 18.5 hours. That last mile up on the summit ridge was killer. I expected going down to be faster but I just could not pick up the pace until I was well out of Gunsight pass and down back into the woods. I was the only one on the mountain and it was beautiful. I passed several moose, a pair of porcupines, some elk, and a pronghorn. They just barely made the last five, brutal miles worth it haha. Finished at about midnight with some soaked boots and tired legs. Awesome trip.

My wife and I moved to Colorado from Washington a couple years ago and got really into long-term mountain goals after spending years hiking around the Cascades and Olympics. Since then we’ve climbed Rainier, worked through 20 Colorado 14ers so far, and started getting interested in things like state highpoints and other bigger objectives.

Along the way, I kept wishing there was something built more around tracking long-term goals instead of just individual hikes or activities, so over the past year or so I started working on something called Yak.

It lets you track things like state highpoints, 14ers, Seven Summits, and other mountain goals, along with route beta, mountain weather, avalanche forecasts, and planning info. It’s all free and currently just on iPhone.

A lot of the inspiration came from spending time in communities like this one and piecing together info from different resources while planning climbs.

Curious what tools or features people here would actually want in something like this.

App Store Link

(Photos from Rainier + a couple screenshots)

I went into the pretty blind, I had no idea the Dakotas were actually pretty damn cool! Loved both of these hikes, also got to see Rushmore and the badlands!
Feel free to follow the journey on Instagram and TikTok @fiftypeaks_withryan as always, Fuck cancer💪