Ryan’s Hiking Page

Ryan has hiked just about every mountain worth hiking in Southwest and Central Virginia, as well as many in West Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Tennessee. He completed Virginia's 50 Finest Mountains on August 27, 2005. He is also the maintainer of the Southeast 50 Most Prominent Mountain Hiking List, a.k.a. The 50 Biggest (formerly The 50 Finest).

Mouse over an area to see pics from that region.

National Forest land in the Mid Atlantic

Northeast Kentucky Spruce Knob Bald Knob Mt Porte Crayon Mt. Rogers Breaks Canyon Beartown Mountain Garden Mountain Apple Orchard Mtn Elliott Knob Peaks of Otter Birch Knob KY/VA Rohan Knob Iroquois Park Poor Mountain Buffalo Mountain Roanoke skyline The Grandfather Three Top Mount Mitchell Clingmans Dome Holston Mtn Campbell Hill He has climbed 15 state highpoints:
Colorado (Mt. Elbert) 14440'
Arizona (Humphreys Peak) 12637'
North Carolina (Mt. Mitchell) 6684'
Tennessee (Clingmans Dome) 6643'
Virginia (Mt. Rogers) 5729'
Nebraska (Panorama Point) 5427'
West Virginia (Spruce Knob) 4863'
Georgia (Brasstown Bald) 4784'
Kentucky (Black Mountain) 4145'
South Carolina (Sassafras Mountain) 3560'
Massachusetts (Mt. Greylock) 3489'
Maryland (Backbone Mountain) 3360'
New Jersey (High Point) 1803'
Ohio (Campbell Hill) 1549'
Indiana (Hoosier Hill) 1257'
as well as the highest mountain in the continental United States.

County highpoint Completion Map

Apple Orchard Mountain, the Virginia state prominence point

Ryan made a solo winter ascent of the "Toughest in the East", Beartown Mountain in Russell county Virginia, via the south ridge. He also ascended the toughest highpoint of a county in Kentucky, Oeser's Dome. He has also hiked numerous county highpoints in Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, New York, Oregon, and Colorado.  

Costa Rica trip September 2006.

Pictures from Ryan's January 2005 trip to Nicaragua

Trip to Norway, 2003.

NEW! List of Kentucky's 100 most prominent mountains: .Kentucky 100 Most Prominent

Ryan's list of all Kentucky summits over 3000 feet: Kentucky Beyond 3000

Some other Arizona Mountains that we hiked.

Ryan at Angels Rest
Angels Rest

Ryan and Karen at Dragon’s Tooth
Dragon’s Tooth

Ryan and Karen at Buffalo Mountain, VA
Buffalo Mountain
Some of the elevations on this website may be slightly different from ones you have seen before. Elevations here use the NAVD 88 vertical datum, which corrects errors in the older NGVD 29 datum used by older USGS maps.