The Best Summits Backpacker’s Editors Have Ever Hiked

There’s something primal about the feeling of reaching a summit. It’s a natural stopping point: You’ve walked uphill until there was no more uphill to walk, and now there’s nothing to do but snap a photo, sit down, and spend some time savoring the experience. In honor of National Trails Day, we asked Backpacker‘s editors to share the best summits they’ve ever hiked. They wrote about their backyard mountain, a famous national park overlook, and what the most important peak in the history of long-distance hiking means to them.

Bear Peak, Boulder, Colorado

I love heroic, once-in-a-lifetime, balance-on-top-and-scream-in-God’s-face mountains as much as the next guy. But there’s something to be said for the everyday summit—the ones that are there when you have a few hours free and want to figuratively (and literally) rise above your everyday troubles. That’s what Bear Peak, a rocky, 8,459-foot summit perched on the skyline above Backpacker’s hometown of Boulder, has been for me. From the South Mesa Trailhead on the edge of town it’s a short but punishing hike, covering about 4.2 miles one way and 2,900 feet of elevation gain: After a short warmup through the meadows at the base of the foothills, the trail turns rocky, climbing steeply through a pine forest before switchbacking through a burn scar and finally popping onto the ridgeline between Bear and neighboring South Boulder Peak; from there, it’s one last gentle, 0.3-mile climb to the jumble of boulders that marks the top, where you can catch your breath while taking in the view of town, the plains, and the long, serrated sweep of the foothills stretching north to the horizon. I’ve been up it alone, with visiting friends, and with coworkers, strolled it under clear skies and rushed down with thunderheads beginning to brew over the mountains. Every time I do, I find something new to appreciate. —Adam Roy, Editor-in-Chief

Mt. Katahdin, Baxter State Park, Maine

For the scores of northbound Appalachian Trail thru-hikers who scale it each fall, Mt. Katahdin marks the completion of a great journey. But for me, standing atop its wind-scoured peak felt like a beginning. At age 14, I was just starting to discover the joys of hiking when I signed up for a summer camp trip to climb the famed summit. It was the first time I’d bail out a tent flooded from a midnight thunderstorm, the first time I’d scramble over boulders and traipse through alpine meadows while my legs burned, and the first time I’d experience the mixed giddiness and disappointment of reaching a summit completely socked in by clouds. In the months after my hike up Katahdin, I felt an enduring pride that made me long to hit the trail again and again. Through the trials of high school, memories of that hike served as a reminder that I could do hard things. In the years since, I’ve felt that same sense of accomplishment on many a summit. But I’ll always carry a special kind of gratitude for Katahdin, the one that kicked off my lifelong love of the mountains. —Zoe Gates, Senior Editor

Nevada Fall, Yosemite National Park, California

The summer before seventh grade, my family and I took a trip up to Yosemite to stay at Housekeeping Camp with several other families. I was excited about spending a week hiking, biking, and rafting around the Valley; as a budding introvert, I was less excited about the constant social interaction. My one respite? A hike up to Nevada Fall, just me and my dad. It was my first experience of a hike as a meditative experience: The commotion of rushing waterfalls on our way to Nevada cleared my mind until it finally quieted-down. It didn’t hurt that the knee-high steps up the Mist Trail worked my quads so hard that I could only focus on making it to the next switchback. If you want to get technical about it, the top of Nevada falls isn’t a “summit”—from the lookout bridge, you’ve still got about a thousand feet to go to the top of Liberty Cap, the granite dome that towers above it. But sitting there and gazing down into the Valley, it certainly felt like one. Even though the 7.3-mile, 2,375-feet-of-vert hike left me sore for days, as soon as I finished, I couldn’t wait for the next climb. —Emma Veidt, Associate Editor