Climber tackling peaks in 50 states in record time

Ben Jones, a 20-year-old college student, is spending the summer getting high.

It’s not what you think.

Jones, a 2003 graduate of Lynnwood High School and an avid climber, is using his vacation to reach the highest points in all 50 states. The effort began with a conquest of Alaska’s Mount McKinley, the nation’s tallest mountain at 20,320 feet, in mid-June. If all goes as planned, Jones will scale No. 50, Hawaii’s 13,796-foot Mauna Kea, by the end of this month.

The idea is to get each of the 50 summits in about 40 days, which would shatter the existing record of 66 days for this feat, as kept by a national organization known as the Highpointers Club.

Breaking the record “is always on my mind,” Jones said the other day, speaking recently by cell phone from his car on a highway somewhere in Arkansas. “The record was the primary motivation for doing this in the beginning. But if I don’t get the 50 in record time, I’ll have no regrets at all. I’ve had so much fun, enjoying the countryside and climbing all these peaks.

“Sure, it would be sweet to set a record. But if not, that’s OK, too,” he said.

The suggestion for this venture came from his father, Dennis Jones, also a climber. A few years ago, in fact, the elder Jones got the idea of getting to the highest point of all 50 states in 2005, the year he turned 50. He discussed it with his son while they were climbing Mount McKinley, and initially the two of them planned to go together.

But upon returning from Alaska, Dennis Jones realized his summer was pretty well tied up with work and other commitments. That left it up to Ben, who is “made to be able to climb mountains,” according to his father. “He’s phenomenally good at that. He’s very determined, he doesn’t give up easily and he can just go hour after hour after hour.”

Back at home, Ben Jones packed his car and was soon off for a solo ascent of Oregon’s 11,239-foot Mount Hood. Then, on to Idaho’s 12,662-foot Borah Peak.

Zigzagging across the country, often by himself but lately having friends along to share the driving, he has been picking off peaks at a rapid clip. The most difficult climbs are in the western United States and many were scheduled for early in the trip, including Colorado’s 14,433-foot Mount Ebert and New Mexico’s 13,161-foot Wheeler Peak, both on one ambitious day.

Jones is saving other western peaks because they will be easier climbs with less snow later in the summer.

As he moves east, the high points are at lower altitudes and days of multiple summits are more frequent. Moreover, some require no hike whatsoever. Of the 50 states, eight high points are drive-ups, meaning a person steps out of the car and is standing at the top. Fifteen more have walks of 1 mile or less.

Jones spent the first week of July making his way through the Midwest and into the South. He reached the top of Oklahoma’s 4,973-foot Black Mesa on July 4 after a round-trip hike of about 9 miles. Then it was on to 4,039-foot Mount Sunflower in Kansas, where he drove to the summit.

The next day he was in Nebraska and driving up 5,424-foot Panorama Point. He continued on to South Dakota, where the trek was a little more difficult to the top of 7,242-foot Harney Peak.

On July 6, he made a 2-mile up-and-back hike on North Dakota’s 3,506-foot White Butte. The rest of the day was spent driving back to Nebraska, and the folllowing day he continued into Arkansas, where on July 8 he did an easy hike up 2,753-foot Mount Magazine, followed by quick visits to Missouri’s 1,772-foot Taum Sauk and Illinois’s 1,235-foot Charles Mound.

Stops on July 9 included Wisconsin’s 1,951-foot Timms Hill, Michigan’s 1,979-foot Mount Avron and Minnesota’s 2,301-foot Eagle Mountain. The next day he was at Iowa’s 1,670-foot Hawkeye Point, Indiana’s 1,257-foot Hoosier Hill and Ohio’s 1,550-foot Campbell Hill.

“I’m spending the majority of my time sitting in a car, driving,” said Jones, a soon-to-be junior at Biola University in La Mirada, Calif.

In fact, his biggest fear is probably not injury, but car trouble. Getting stranded — and some high points are many miles from large cities — could jeopardize his chance at the 50-state record.

“Time is always a factor,” Jones said. “It’s always ticking away. There have been times along the way when I visited with friends, and it would have been nice to hang out a little longer. But they understand that I need to keep making progress.”

As he gets further east, and as the states get smaller, that progress should accelerate. As he moves down the East Coast, he hopes to do nine or 10 summits in one day. That would be another record, topping the existing mark of eight.

The last few peaks will be back on the West Coast, including California’s 14,494-foot Mount Whitney and Washington’s 14,411-foot Mount Rainier. Then he will fly to Hawaii to wrap up with Mauna Kea.

Not your ordinary summer vacation, of course, but one that has afforded Jones a great goal and a host of great memories.

“I’ve had an awesome time, going through the Rocky Mountains and then seeing some of the dried-up deserts in Utah and some of the plains states,” he said. “I’m getting to see a lot of God’s beautiful country throughout the whole United States.”

Rich Myhre writes for The Herald in Everett.