Summit Cheeseburger

I heard about the Cheeseburger Summit page on the Podcacher podcast (the podcast all about geocaching).  So when I saw that a few new caches had been placed on the Pentland hills, I thought about combining the two activities.

It was a warm, humid and sunny day as we set out.  A quick pit stop at McDonalds and we were on our way with the necessary cheeseburgers.  We drove around the Edinburgh city bypass and parked at Swanston.  There is a very posh golf clubhouse here and some quaint wee cottages.  The path took us through some farmland, where a herd of Highland cattle were lying in the shade.  With their thick hairy coats, they must have been feeling the heat.

On towards the summit, and there was hardly a breeze.  The views over Edinburgh would have been spectacular, except for the haziness.  We reached the top where it was time for some food.  We broke out the cheeseburgers and celebrated reaching the summmit!

We found the geocache which was nearby, so we swapped a couple of travel bugs and signed the logbook, including the story of the cheeseburgers, of course.

I heard about the Cheeseburger Summit page on the Podcacher podcast (the podcast all about geocaching).  So when I saw that a few new caches had been placed on the Pentland hills, I thought about combining the two activities.

It was a warm, humid and sunny day as we set out.  A quick pit stop at McDonalds and we were on our way with the necessary cheeseburgers.  We drove around the Edinburgh city bypass and parked at Swanston.  There is a very posh golf clubhouse here and some quaint wee cottages.  The path took us through some farmland, where a herd of Highland cattle were lying in the shade.  With their thick hairy coats, they must have been feeling the heat.

On towards the summit, and there was hardly a breeze.  The views over Edinburgh would have been spectacular, except for the haziness.  We reached the top where it was time for some food.  We broke out the cheeseburgers and celebrated reaching the summmit!

We found the geocache which was nearby, so we swapped a couple of travel bugs and signed the logbook, including the story of the cheeseburgers, of course.

Q.  What's a pirate's favorite restaurant?

A.  ARRRRRRRR-by's.

Another vacation, another cheeseburger summit. This time we were visiting the US Virgin Islands - St. John specifically. As about 2/3 of St. John is a National Park it was not difficult to find peaks, with trails, to consider summiting. We selected a peak within sight of our rental, America Hill, as our target. It's the small hill, dead center in the photo below.

America Hill lies between Cinammon and Maho bays on the north shore of St. John and can be accessed from the Cinammon Bay parking lot. The trailhead is across the street from the parking lot. At the trailhead we found the ruins of an old sugar factory. Looking at the jungle that covers St. John today it's hard to believe that at one time over 90% of the island was committed to sugar cane. We began our ascent in a drenching tropical rain. A sign at the intersection with the spur trail to the summit provided directions.

As we ascended a colorful hermit crab was guarding the way forward.

A look at a map of St. John indicated that ruins were located on the summit of America Hill. I was imagining a ring of rocks or something equally unimpressive. When we reached the summit we were all impressed by the sight of an enormous estate house. It was falling to pieces, but in its day it must have been something else. The ruins are very dangerous and we carefully wandered around to get a good look at them.

We brought out the burgers at the summit, which is located near the former kitchen, in a building separate from the main estate. If you need to know - they were beef with AMERICA(Hill)N cheese burgers, prepared at the rental the night before.

As we descended the temperature and humidity shot up. Oh, so that's why they built the estate on top of a hill, to catch the cool sea breezes. To learn more about the America Hill ruins, check out the Google or follow these links:

http://www.seestjohn.com/trails_cinnamon_bay.html

http://stjohntour.com/CinnamonBayRuins.html

A final thought: Once again, Summit Cheeseburger comes through. We hike some random hill/mountain to eat a burger and are surprised by the view, or in this case, a tremendous set of ruins. I don't think we would have made it to this summit but for the mighty Summit Cheeseburger.

With a full weekend of fun planned in Jackson (including a rodeo, a hike around Jenny Lake, and some great food), we had just a few extra minutes for a quick summit with the girls, so we each grabbed a quick Dariy Queen cheeseburger and headed for the nearest summit.  While the exact fraction of hiking/driving will remain a secret, the number was closer to 0 than not.

Nevertheless, the rules stipulate that any means of ascending the peak will suffice, and so we rejoiced in our easiest Summit Cheeseburger to date.

After scouting a few summits, we narrowed it down to two attempts for the morning.  As we approached the first summit, however, we realized it was on private property, and even worse, it was well fenced and gated.  As we searched for a way up the first summit, our hunger increased exponentially and we were forced to eat one of our cheeseburgers without a summit attempt.

At that point, we headed off for summit number two, and after a few dead ends, we found a route that would bring us within striking distance of the summit.  A short hike and we made it to the summit were we located the marker and ate our burgers.

A beautiful day in Wyoming.

On a recent trip to Le France, we decided to make a Le SummitFromageBurger. In the south and right next to le sea, there is a small summit called Pic Cap Roux. With most of le people flocking to nearby Cannes to gander at les movie stars during le film festivals, we had the entire mountain to ourselves.

Starting out from BaseCamp you can see the Cap Roux sitting next to the sea. The route would take us down to the beach before ascending Le Beast:

Wild Lavender was scattered across the mountain:

Our summit attempt was slowed as I found myself constantly pressing on the bark of the cork trees along the route - yes they feel like cork... cool...

At the summit, our burgers (french style) were placed on the summmit marker:

A 360 Panorama for your pleasure:

With our first French Summmit Cheeseburger complete, we headed promptly into town for some wine and cheese before heading home for a nap.

Day = Perfect

(same as: http://summitcheeseburger.com/node/442)

I'm going to need to take some Welsh lessons if I want to be able to correctly pronounce the names of the summits I'm visiting... I I have no idea how to say where I was today without pointing to a map!

Today in North Wales it was hotter than in Los Angeles and Sydney ... don't believe what they say about Britain having crappy weather, May has been beautiful!

After a quick stop at the McDonald's drive through for provisions, I drove out to Capel Curig and got organized for my hike... water and sunscreen being the two most important things after the cheeseburgers on this particular day. The sun was out in force, the temperature was in the high 20s (that's Celsius, in case you live in one of the two countries in the world that rejects the metric system) at the base of the mountains, and the trails were nice and dry thanks to a general lack of rain recently.

I picked Pen Llithrig y Wrach as my destination simply by looking at the list of summits near my last summit cheeseburger. My guidebook suggested a 14km loop that also included another summit, Pen yr Helgi Du, which wasn't listed on this site, but will be soon once the crack team of cartographers gets the "add a summit" form I submitted. Personally, I think choosing summits this way is an excellent idea... rather than researching all the possible summits and trails for the "best" one, pick one because it's there and go for it!

As usual in Wales, the trail consisted of public footpaths that cut through fields shared with cows, horses, and of course, sheep! At one trail junction on today's hike, the most obvious path went right and traversed the resevoir adjacent to the mountain I was planning to summit. The less-obvious path to the left (those were the words used by the guide book) was even less obvious than I expected, and before too long I realized I was just following sheep paths, but since they were going up I continued and eventually found a path that was obviously used frequently by humans.

Pen Llithrig y Wrach was the first summit I reached...

... where I consumed the first of my McDonalds double cheeseburgers ...

The next summit was Pen yr Helgi Du (looking back at Pen Llithrig y Wrach) ...

The last leg of the loop followed the original road through the valley (now just a footpath) and offered a nice view of the two breasts summits that I had just visited...

...and finally, what hike report from North Wales would be complete without the obligatory photo of a sheep? Today's sheep photo features the most docile lamb I've seen yet... awww! :)

Cheers!

Krusty Bunz

While on safari in the Namibia with my father, I decided that I needed to claim the first cheeseburger summit on the African continent.  After discussing the vision and rules of summitcheese with the local guides, they decided that Dopsteer would be a good summit to climb with the limited time that we had. 

On the road to the coast, Dopsteer is the only hill that the road must go over.  In the past the road was not very good and it would require a lot of work and pushing to get vehicles to the top.  After all that work people needed a good drink which is how the the summit got its name.  Dopsteer means "good drink."

The burger consisted of a canned corned beef patty, a slice of cheddar, a few onion slices, and bread made at camp.  I wanted to eat an oryx or zebra burger (both of which would have tasted far better than the canned corned beef), but it wasn't an option on summit day.

Eating a cheeseburger in the Namib desert.

There is now a nice spot next to the road to have that good drink.

One of the many amazing animals we saw on the trip. 

I'm going to need to take some Welsh lessons if I want to be able to correctly pronounce the names of the summits I'm visiting... I I have no idea how to say where I was today without pointing to a map!

Today in North Wales it was hotter than in Los Angeles and Sydney ... don't believe what they say about Britain having crappy weather, May has been beautiful!

After a quick stop at the McDonald's drive through for provisions, I drove out to Capel Curig and got organized for my hike... water and sunscreen being the two most important things after the cheeseburgers on this particular day. The sun was out in force, the temperature was in the high 20s (that's Celsius, in case you live in one of the two countries in the world that rejects the metric system) at the base of the mountains, and the trails were nice and dry thanks to a general lack of rain recently.

I picked Pen Llithrig y Wrach as my destination simply by looking at the list of summits near my last summit cheeseburger. My guidebook suggested a 14km loop that also included another summit, Pen yr Helgi Du, which wasn't listed on this site, but will be soon once the crack team of cartographers gets the "add a summit" form I submitted. Personally, I think choosing summits this way is an excellent idea... rather than researching all the possible summits and trails for the "best" one, pick one because it's there and go for it!

As usual in Wales, the trail consisted of public footpaths that cut through fields shared with cows, horses, and of course, sheep! At one trail junction on today's hike, the most obvious path went right and traversed the resevoir adjacent to the mountain I was planning to summit. The less-obvious path to the left (those were the words used by the guide book) was even less obvious than I expected, and before too long I realized I was just following sheep paths, but since they were going up I continued and eventually found a path that was obviously used frequently by humans.

Pen Llithrig y Wrach was the first summit I reached...

... where I consumed the first of my McDonalds double cheeseburgers ...

The next summit was Pen yr Helgi Du (looking back at Pen Llithrig y Wrach) ...

The last leg of the loop followed the original road through the valley (now just a footpath) and offered a nice view of the two breasts summits that I had just visited...

...and finally, what hike report from North Wales would be complete without the obligatory photo of a sheep? Today's sheep photo features the most docile lamb I've seen yet... awww! :)

Cheers!

Krusty Bunz

When attempting a cheeseburger summit while on vacation with your pregnant wife, it is best to look for a small hill to climb.  Point Dume fit the bill as it is the lowest summit listed in all of LA county. 

To start the hike off we had to steer clear of a car commercial being filmed in the parking lot.  Due to its proximity to LA, Point Dume's Westward Beach is used as a popular filming location for television, advertisements, and films including The Big Lebowski (Walter and the Dude scattered Donnie's ashes from a Point Dume cliff).

Because we had to make our flight home in a couple of hours, we had to hurry up the trail and eat our Sourdough Jacks as quickly as possible.  A friendly but puzzled couple watched us take a few pictures of the burgers and then offered to take a picture of the two of us.  There was a whale swimming past the point while we were there, but we didn't have time to watch it for long.  Cheesy Buns was a trooper and got down the hill quickly.  It was a good thing that there was an HOV lane and no police on the road or we would not have made it to the airport in time. 

Cheesy Buns on the trail to the summit

Cheeseburgers on the California coast

Tugboat and Cheesy Buns enjoying Sourdough Jacks on Point Dume