I recently set out to break the FKT for fastest time to summit the highest point in every state. For this record the stopwatch starts at the summit of the first peak, and stops at the summit of the 50th peak. The Guinness world record clock starts at the bottom, but this post is about the FKT. I summited Denali solo at 3:00 PM on the 14th of June then walked/skied back to basecamp later that day. I flew to Hawaii and ran from the trailhead to the summit and back down, which is around a half Marathon. After that I flew to Portland Oregon where I met with my Dad and two friends in a minivan who would help with the majority of the driving. We then drove to all of the lower 48 states, as flying all over the country wasn't the way I wanted to do this record. Unfortunately due to bad conditions on Mt Rainier I had to fly from the east coast to the west coast to try this peak again.
I know there have been some arguments surrounding who holds this record, and if that person is Colin O'Brady or David Ashley. To make sure that there would be no issues with this record, I decided to climb up and down as many of the peaks as possible, including the ones that were driven by the record holders before me. This wasn't an attempt to belittle anyone, I just wanted to make sure that I got this fairly. These drivable state high points that we chose to run were Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee.
We pushed hard, we followed the rules, and we did our very best to do it in good faith of the people who help the record before. Big effort shown by both groups.
If there is anything that I have missed or more information that is needed for people to verify this just let me know, but please be kind as this is my first time here. Thanks to all the great people I met along the way and to my friends and family for all the help. Special thanks to Cale, Brooks, Ryan, Jill and my dad Philip.