Couple gets to the top of a 50-state challenge

Associated Press

WINTHROP — Steve and Liz Fellstrom love heights — even if they’re low.

In August 1994, they climbed to the highest point in Florida, 345-foot Britton Hill. To get there, they trekked along an easy park path.

Getting to the high point in Alaska — 20,320-foot Mount McKinley — was something more than a walk in the park. The Fellstroms had to make two attempts, 12 months apart, before clear weather allowed them to pick their way over snow and ice to the top of a mountain that has claimed almost 90 lives in recent climbing history.

The retired Winthrop couple, who moved to the Methow Valley a year ago, are "highpointers."

As of July 2000, they had walked, hiked or climbed to the highest elevations in all 50 states. The last one was in Hawaii.

"We walked hand in hand to the summit of Mauna Kea," Steve Fellstrom says. It was romantic — and easy, being a short hike off the paved road atop the island of Kona — but the Fellstroms had mixed feelings.

"In one way, it was over, but in another way, it was ‘What do you do now?’ " says Liz Fellstrom.

"I was sort of glad it was finally done," Steve Fellstrom adds. "It had consumed me for five years."

Steve, 54, and Liz, 56, began their marriage 22 years ago with him as the sole outdoor enthusiast. "She never used to do anything athletic," Steve Fellstrom says.

A few years into the marriage, Liz Fellstrom started hiking with her husband, but stayed in camp while he scrambled nearby peaks.

In 1989, Steve Fellstrom talked her into taking a snowshoe course from The Mountaineers in Seattle. At the time, he was a Bellevue police officer and she was court-operating manager for King County District Court in Bellevue.

Liz Fellstrom found she enjoyed snowshoeing, and moved on to take an alpine scrambling course in 1993. In late winter of 1994, she enrolled in a basic climbing course. She and her husband bagged Mount Rainier, Washington state’s highest peak, on Aug. 7, 1994.

"I was scared to death," Liz Fellstrom says. "I’d heard too many stories about people always falling off that mountain."

She discovered on that climb that she had altitude-induced asthma. At 11,000 feet, she told Steve she needed to turn back. It was only at his urging that she pushed past her breathing problems and continued on. At the summit, "I was exhausted," she says. "It was like one step at a time."

Later, she would go on asthma medication, which helped with other climbs.

Back at work, Steve Fellstrom rewarded her with flowers.

For that and other climbing efforts, she acquired celebrity status every Monday at the office.

"People would line up at my desk and want to know what I’d done that weekend," she says. "Everybody else was going to the mall, and I was climbing mountains."

Around that time, Steve Fellstrom was reading the book "Highpoints of the United States," by Don Holmes, which gives directions to the highest point in each state. The idea intrigued both of them — until Liz Fellstrom realized she had forgotten about Alaska. Its highest point is the daunting Mount McKinley.

The climb would be too technical for her skills, she told her husband, and her asthma might cause problems.

No, she decided, 49 high points was a fine goal for her.

In fall 1994, the couple headed out on their travels, bagging high points in Texas, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Georgia, Kentucky, South Carolina, North Dakota, Alabama, Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Florida.

Traveling in a camper, the trip took them three weeks.

In 1995, they took in South Dakota, New Hampshire, Nebraska, New York, Maine, West Virginia, Vermont, Kansas, Massachusetts, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New Jersey, Missouri, Delaware and Iowa.

That last spot was memorable: an expired Iowa license plate with the words "HIGH PT" perched atop a concrete box at the end of a cow trough on a farm.

A sign offered them a free key chain for their efforts. It noted the elevation, 1,670 feet.

The Fellstroms tried to do Rhode Island that year, too, but got kicked off a piece of private property they had to cross to reach the high point of 812 feet, called Jerimoth Hill.

In May 2000, the Fellstroms returned on one of four open dates offered by the property owner.

In 1996, they took in high points in Oklahoma, Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, New Mexico, Arizona, Oregon, California, Nevada and Montana.

In 1997, they bagged Colorado, Utah and Idaho.

Because of thunderstorms, it took them three tries to reach the top of 12,662-foot Borah Peak in Idaho.

During their successful ascent, the weather was still nasty.

"We got it and got out of there," Steve Fellstrom says. "There were no views, the wind was blowing, it was cold and the rocks were coated with ice."

By 1998, Liz Fellstrom was feeling better about her technical climbing skills and agreed, nervously, to try McKinley.

It was a cold, miserable experience. The couple spent three weeks on the mountain waiting for a break in the weather. Storms kept them from climbing higher than 16,200 feet, 4,120 feet below the summit.

Still, they returned the next year and made it to the top in 14 days of hard climbing. The weather was good during most of the climb.

"I felt really good; really, really good," she says, then pauses and laughs. "I knew I wouldn’t have to go back."

And Steve Fellstrom couldn’t have been more proud.

"How many women her age are going to start out that late (in life) and climb Mount McKinley when they’re a grandmother?" he asks.

The couple has four children and five grandchildren.

Also that year, the Fellstroms climbed 13,803-foot Gannett Peak in Wyoming, leaving only Hawaii for them to conquer in July 2000.

Hitting the high points in each state kept the couple on more backroads than the usual traveler, but they still managed to take in a few traditional spots, including Washington D.C., Arlington National Cemetery, Niagara Falls, Mount Rushmore and Little Big Horn.

The Fellstroms say the hardest high points were, in descending order, McKinley, Rainier, Gannet Peak in Wyoming and Granite Peak in Montana.

The easiest one was the park in Florida.

During most of the past year, the Fellstroms took a break from long trips while they built a new home. From their living room, they don’t have to look far for challenges.

"We want to be able to climb all the peaks we can see from our house, and there are some pretty neat peaks," Liz Fellstrom says. "We look straight across at Mount Gardner."

They are also hoping to reach the highest points in every county in Washington state.

So far, they’ve bagged peaks in 36 counties and have three left: Bonanza Peak in Chelan County, Big Horn in Lewis County and Buckner Mountain in Skagit County.

What about the Himalayas, long considered among the hardest climbs in the world?

"I think that’s beyond me," says Liz Fellstrom. "I don’t think it is," says Steve.

"Oh, you say that about everything we do," she says.

About those Himalayas: Don’t count them out.

Copyright ©2001 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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