Tallest Mountain Peaks you have clinched

[roadman65]

I was curious to which mountain peaks that you either clinched by hiking trail or motor roads throughout your lives.

I have done Pikes, Peak, CO via Cog Railway.
I have done High Point, NJ via motor road.  Though most of flat western Kansas is higher in elevation than the NJ point along the Appalachian Mountains, but still counts as a peak.  Dodge City, for example is higher than 1803 which is the highest point in the Garden State.
I have done Mount Mitchell, NC via motor road.
I have done Mount Cadillac, ME via child passenger in my dad's station wagon.
I have visited Lookout Mountain, TN via car.
I have climbed Camelback Mountain in the Poconos of PA via a car trip with my own rented car and my friend following me in his Dodge truck.
I do not know if Newfound Gap along US 441 actually counts as a peak or not, but it has an overlook looking at both states of NC and TN, but if it does than add to the list.

What mountains have you climbed either by foot, bike, or car?

[briantroutman]

I've reached the top of Pike's Peak both by the Cog Railway and by car. Both were fun.

Knowing what engine braking is got me a free "skip ahead"  pass at the checkpoint descending the mountain. Almost everyone else had been riding their brakes and were ordered into a waiting area to allow their brakes to cool.

[oscar]

Mt. Evans in CO, and Mauna Kea and the shorter Haleakala in Hawaii.  You can drive all three almost to the top, but a little hiking needed to reach the summits.

I've also driven to the top of Pikes Peak, which has a flat summit with lots of parking spaces.

Mauna Kea, and someplace in northeastern Mississippi, are my only two state high points.

[agentsteel53]

the highest peak I've reached is Haleakala.  it indeed involved a very small amount of hiking.

[Thing 342]

State peaks I have clinched:
Delaware (here @ 447ft) by car
North Carolina (Mount Mitchell @ 6684ft) by car
Virginia (Mount Rogers @ 5729ft) by foot

Others I have visited:
Alaska (Denali) by plane
Arizona (Humphreys Peak)
Montana (Granite Peak)
Nebraska (Panorama Point)
Wyoming (Gannett Peak)

[Pete from Boston]

I've reached the top of Pike's Peak both by the Cog Railway and by car. Both were fun.

Knowing what engine braking is got me a free "skip ahead"  pass at the checkpoint descending the mountain. Almost everyone else had been riding their brakes and were ordered into a waiting area to allow their brakes to cool.

In what gear do they recommend/require you to descend?

[oscar]

I’ve reached the top of Pike’s Peak both by the Cog Railway and by car. Both were fun.

Knowing what engine braking is got me a free “skip ahead” pass at the checkpoint descending the mountain. Almost everyone else had been riding their brakes and were ordered into a waiting area to allow their brakes to cool.

In what gear do they recommend/require you to descend?

First.  My first trip was in a car whose automatic transmission could not be manually shifted lower than second gear.  I got pulled over at the brake check.  A later trip in my 4x4 pickup truck, I went down in first gear but did not put my transfer case in low range to max out my engine braking.  I did not get pulled over at the brake check on that trip, nor on another trip when I drove a car that I could manually downshift to first but did not have low range.

[Laura]

I've hiked to the top of Mt. Rogers (5729 ft) in Virginia.

[broadhurst04]

The three highest peaks I've been to, all in a car: Grandfather Mtn. (5964), Clingman's Dome (6643) and Mount Mitchell (6684).
(Does having the elevations of the summits memorized make me a peakgeek?) 

[Jardine]

Pike's Peak in my parents Winnebago back in the 70s.

Absolutely terrifying!!!!!

[Duke87]

This required a hike of a few hundred yards (horizontally) from the parking lot up a gentile hill... which left me repeatedly out of breath. Thin air at high altitudes, it's a killer. I may still have lying around somewhere an empty 24 oz soda bottle which was last opened on top of this hill. It was its normal shape up there but at home near sea level it's crushed flat by the pressure outside. Physics are phun.

Trail Ridge Road (US 34) peaks at 12,163 feet a bit east of here, though, so this is not quite the highest point on land I've ever been at.


Also of note, I have been to the summit of Mount Mansfield (4393 feet), which is the highest point in Vermont.
And Cadillac Mountain (1528 feet), which is the highest point along the Atlantic coast of the US.

[cpzilliacus]

Several peaks (not especially high, because most are in the East):

U.S. 50 at Backbone Mountain in Garrett County, Maryland (3095 feet)

Richland Balsam, Blue Ridge Parkway, Haywood and Jackson Counties, North Carolina (6053 feet)

W.Va. 93 at the Eastern Continental Divide, Grant County/Tucker County, Bismarck, W.Va. (3200+ feet)

As mentioned above, Cadillac Mountain, Acadia National Park, Maine (1528 feet)

I-70/I-76 at the Allegheny Mountain Tunnel, Pennsylvania (about 2400 feet)

I-10, Beaumont, Riverside County, California (about 2600 feet)

[froggie]

Amongst the places I've been:

Japan's Mount Fuji (12,389ft) is like a pilgrimage.  Awesome sunrise view too.  Gotta hike the upper ~5,000ft, though.  Cars can't go past the fifth station (~7,500ft).

Highest point in West Virginia (Spruce Knob, 4,863ft) is drivable to within about 1/4mi of the top.

Highest point in Maryland (Hoye Crest, along Backbone Mountain, 3,360ft) is hikeable from a small parking area along US 219 near Silver Lake, WV.  The actual high point is only about 300ft from the westernmost point in Maryland (the north-south part of the MD/WV border).

Mount Washington in New Hampshire (6,288ft) is the highest east of the Mississippi outside of Tennessee or North Carolina (both states have several peaks that are taller, including the aforementioned Clingmans Dome and Mt. Mitchell).  We reached the summit by car off NH 16 (another summit road they want you to only use 1st gear in), though it also has a COG railway that  makes the trip from off US 302.  I may or may not join a group from my college in a couple weeks that plans to hike it.

Elliott Knob (4,463ft) is the tallest point in George Washington National Forest in Virginia.  It also has one of the few remaining fire lookout towers.  Hikeable from a few different directions...I went in from SR 688.  It's also not too far from where an F-15 went down a couple days ago.

[Jim]

It's not the peak, and it was a ski lift rather than a hike or drive that got me there, but I think this is the highest elevation I've been to:

I've only been to the summit of 3 state high points: Massachusetts, North Carolina, and Tennessee, though I've seen about half of them.  I need to get to more.

[oscar]

I may still have lying around somewhere an empty 24 oz soda bottle which was last opened on top of this hill. It was its normal shape up there but at home near sea level it's crushed flat by the pressure outside. Physics are phun.

I've more than once experienced the opposite effect, of a bag of chips purchased at sea level exploding on my drive into the mountains.