Mount Delaware, A.K.A. Ebright Azimuth (DE)

In early December, 2012, we ascended our first high point of an eastern state at a place called Ebright Azimuth in northern Delaware.  Miraculously, we found the summit on our first try and completed the perilous ascent in a brisk wind without ropes or supplemental oxygen.  I forgot my ice axe and crampons, etriers, pitons, even my altitude pills, so we had to brave the final steps to the nearly level, 448-foot high summit plateau with no protection against a serious fall.  Fortunately, gravity was in our favor since everything around us was totally and awesomely flat.  The fall line was so steep it was a dot (sorry, climber joke).  I suppose they could also call this Flattop Mountain, which seems to be my thing in 2012 (in Alaska and Colorado), but the top of this “mountain” is pretty much the entire state of Delaware.  The view tower nearby was much too intimidating to attempt in our exhausted, shaken condition, so we hopped back in the car instead and drove over to a local bakery for coffee and a pastry.  In any event, we bagged our high point and will see now if we can work up the courage to try another, perhaps a winter ascent of Rhode Island’s 811-foot tall behemoth, Jerimoth Hill.  Incidentally, we’ve also waddled up to the highest point in DC, 414-foot high Reno Reservoir—or as close as the fence will let you get.  But alas, the District is not yet a state, so we only get a quarter-point for that one.

Summit Ridge, uncanny resemblance to a sidewalk.