14
The Club That I Love
by Brendan MacKay
I first started out in highpointing at a young age. The highpointers are a group of people that try to hike to the summit of the highest mountain in all fifty states. My first highpoint was Mount Greylock in 2001 when I was four years old. By the time I finished my second highpoint in 2002 at Jerimoth Hill in Rhode Island, I knew that I was hooked. The process has been slow but I have completed sixteen highpoints and I’m always ready to take on another one. My grandfather was the first member of our family to join the club and to this day it remains a very important part of his life and each convention has become our yearly family vacation.
We have traveled to places we never could have imagined without being in the club. Every year we pack up the car and drive to wherever the convention is. The club is something that has made our family closer and continues to do so. The first convention I attended was in 2006 with my grandparents in North Carolina. I loved everything about it and met some people I consider some of my best friends almost ten years later. I have always felt a strong connection with the outdoors and it gets stronger with every hike I complete. One of my favorite things to do besides hiking is fishing.
This made me realize that a great way I could connect these two things in my future career is to become a wildlife conservation officer. These are the people who go out in the field and make sure that people are enjoying their natural surroundings safely and legally. I strongly believe in saving these resources for future generations to enjoy the way we can today. One way to do this is through the enforcement of certain laws and regulations that allow the natural wildlife population to remain at a healthy level. This cannot happen if we continue to destroy habitats and the animals that live in them. Many people believe hunting and fishing is wrong but it is a necessary thing to keep an ecosystem healthy as well as allow people to put food on the table for their families. I strongly support both hunting and fishing as long as laws are being followed. Wildlife officers help to make sure hunters and gatherers are doing so legally and that what they are doing will not cause problems for the next generation of animals and people.
I knew at a young age that this was something very interesting to me. It would allow me to work outdoors alongside others who feel a connection with nature as well. Every year that I come to a convention and get to talk to people who feel the same way about these things makes me realize that this is a natural way to connect my loves for highpointing, hiking, and nature. The Highpointers Club and hiking helped me see even at a young age that this is something I wanted to do for the rest of my life and maybe someday bring my children along with me to do highpoints. It has become a yearly family bonding activity and I can’t imagine my life without it.