State the purpose of this page. This is a repository of all my highpoints hikes I have done over the years. Although I "officially" started highpointing in the early 1990s, I include some earlier hikes since they fit the theme and I had some photos to use.

What's a highpoint? A highpoint is the highest point of natural land within a political division, which in this case consists of the highpoints of the states of the United States, counties within the states, and to a lesser extent, highpoints of National Parks. For the most part, a highpoint is a summit of some mountain or hill, or even a rise on a flattish grassland or pasture. In other cases it may be on the boundary on the side of a hill. The classic example of this is the highest point in Connecticut, which lies on the side of a small peak (Frissell Peak) that actually summits in Massachusetts. Where the state line runs across the south slope of Frissell, this is the highest point of land in Connecticut.

What's the deal with prominence? This is a relatively new addition to the page. Since many of the peaks I have climbed possess significant prominence, I have decided to track these as well. Ironically, I have done less state and county highpoints and more prominence peaks in recent years because I have finished all the nearby state and county highpoints, while I have many prominence peaks still to do.

What'll happen when you run out of prominence peaks? I'm thinking about taking up drugs.

Is this a "blog"? I never thought so, but I guess it does meet some of the characteristic requirements of a blog. It's updated regularly and nobody reads it. That makes it a blog in my mind.

How does nudity fit in to the grand theme of your page? I remember hearing some women shriek when I turned a corner on a hike in Utah. They were hiking topless, and hadn't expected to see me. I actually told them it was okay to not have to put back on their shirts so fast. Dang. When my wife accompanies me, of course, then all morals and inhibitions are thrown out the window.

When did this page start? I created my first highpoints page way back in 1995, when I was experimenting with HTML and web-page creation. Seeking a topic on which to create a page, I made up a one-page summary of my handful of state highpoints that I had completed by that time. It was pretty nifty: I even had different colors for the state names. No photos, by the way. Once I learned about "p align=justify", I have never looked back.

Around about 1999-2000 I started creating pages for each hike individually, arranging them by state and county name. In 2003-2004, I created the current basic look that I use for the page nowadays. I'm always tweaking a lot of the appearance code. I have recently learned a little CSS, enough to make me dangerous, and have added their cool effects to some of the pages. My eventual goal is to have all pages have teal bold text in 24-pt font against a black background, with flashing images everywhere. Ooh, very nice.

What does your wife think? She has been a wonderful supporter of my hobby, and has joined me on many hikes. She enjoys the pages, too. I theorize the counter on the main page roughly can be divided in half, representing the number of times I look in, and the number of times she looks in. My mom likely accounts for the rest of the views.