Trek

Ameritrekking and Highpointing: Discovering America the Beautiful is the tale of Accountant Joe, a corporate cubicle rat who was told he had saved too much vacation time and had to use it up. So he did. He hit the road with a map and a camera and a notebook. He returned weeks later after driving 8,000 miles through 23 states. Along the way he found friends, national parks, Native American battlefields, rivers, canyons, craters, mountains, deserts, wildflowers, amber waves of grain, roaring diesel trucks, and silent forests reaching to the horizon. He called this Ameritrekking and kept traveling year after year until he had driven over 120,000 miles-halfway to the Moon-and kept on going. Every state has one unique point higher than all other points. It is called the highpoint and trying to go to them is called Highpointing. On this first Ameritrek he went to the highpoints of South Dakota and Texas. Now more than two decades later he has been to 45 of the 50 highpoints. Some highpoints are remote; several are major mountains; all are marvelous.

This booklet is a sample of a full-length book. It is Chapter 24 in Ameritrekking and Highpointing: Stalking the Wild Thirteeners. This short story tells the true tale of the author's 1996 visit to Bryce Canyon National Park in southern Utah. The visit took place in the same year as the second Ameritrek, the subject of the main book. In this booklet, you can travel vicariously to a famously beautiful park and sample the writing in the full book at the same time. The main book, Stalking the Wild Thirteeners, resulted from an 8,000-mile, three-week road trip involving state and national parks, as well as several highpoints. A highpoint is the highest natural geographic point in a state. In the American West, highpoints are the summits of great mountains, including "thirteeners," peaks at least 13,000 feet above sea level. Over the years Joseph Whelan drove more than 125,000 miles-the equivalent of five times around the Earth at the equator-and spent over a year on the road. He went to 45 highpoints and many other strange and wonderful places. He continues to travel and write.

This booklet is a sample of a full-length book. It is Chapter 29 in Ameritrekking and Highpointing: Stalking the Wild Thirteeners. Here you can read the true tale of the author's visit to New Mexico's highpoint, Wheeler Peak. A highpoint is the highest naturally occurring geographic point in a state. Wheeler Peak is the 8th-highest highpoint in the 50 states. The climb took place in the same year as the second Ameritrek, the subject of the main book. This is one chapter from that book, so you can travel vicariously to New Mexico's highest point and sample the writing at the same time. The main book, Stalking the Wild Thirteeners, resulted from an 8,000-mile, three-week road trip involving other highpoints, including the lowest of the 50 highpoints, Britton Hill in Florida. Along the way the author visited state and national parks, plus much more while driving through 21 states. Over the years Joseph Whelan drove more than 125,000 miles-the equivalent of five times around the Earth at the equator-and spent over a year on the road. He went to 45 highpoints and many other strange and wonderful places. He continues to travel and write.

This booklet is a sample of a full-length book. It is Chapter 6 in Ameritrekking and Highpointing: Finding the Lost River Range. This short story tells the tale of the author's visit to Missouri Headwaters State Park. The park is in Montana, not Missouri. The visit took place in the same year (1997) as the third Ameritrek, the subject of the main book, Finding the Lost River Range. This is one chapter from that book, so you can travel vicariously to a little-visited park and sample the writing at the same time. The main book, Finding the Lost River Range, resulted from an 8,000-mile, three-week road trip visiting highpoints as well as local and national parks in 20 states. Over the years the author drove more than 100,000 miles and spent over a year on the road. He went to 45 highpoints and many other strange and wonderful places. He continues to travel and write.