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Comments About County Highpointer Andy Martin
Apex to Zenith -- First Quarter 2002 - Issue #56

Dave Covill

Andy Martin is a guy who has become a good friend of mine, even though we've only crossed paths a couple of times. Such is the magic of email... He started the whole county highpointing thing in the early 90's, and it has become a major phenomenon now. His book, "County High Points', researched every one of the 3,141 cohps in America, and told all where they lay hidden.

He has been the moderator of an email chat group, which today boasts well over 150 members, about half of whom post a thought at least once a week. Some days there are over 2 dozen posts. It comes out once a day in a digest format to me, and I look forward to getting to work in the morning, with my cohp digest there to greet me and start my day.

Andy has been very active in the real world, too, climbing all the state highpoints except Denali, and over 300 county highpoints. He has done them all in AZ, NM, NV, and UT. Just call him "Mr. Desert Southwest". All this while working a fulltime job as a mining engineer.

Many of the more prominent county highpointers have an activity named for them. To Lobdellize is to criss-cross a flat contour area, being sure you really got to the highest spot. To Mitchlerize is to lay down on the ground with your handlevel, cacti or not, and be certain that another potential high ground is lower. To Martinize, heh heh, is to drive as close as possible to the highpoint. A perfect Martinization is when one can drag the left foot out of the car and not even get out, claiming the highpoint from the car.

As state highpointers know, this is possible in spots like the Kansas highpoint. Andy is not lazy; au contraire, he's hiked some very tough mountains in America, but he just likes to make best use of his time. Can't say as that I blame him. I salute him, for my life would be very different if not for his efforts over the years. Like Jakk, he has started something, and there's no stopping it now.

Robert Packard

The most astonishing thing about Andy to me is the quality of his research. It is amazing how few significant errors there are in his book of cohp's. He enjoys getting out on hikes with others, been on a couple with him myself. But he seems to like the research even more. He's a fountain on information. A real nice guy and family, too. He's into sharing. Great to be with, too

Scott Surgent

I've met Andy just once. We did a few Texas county HPs back in March 2001. I met him in Tucson and we convoyed past El Paso and bush-camped in the desert near Sierra Blanca TX. We, along with Bob Martin (no relation), hit 4 county highpoints in the Permian Basin of Texas. Andy is a very meticulous, well-prepared person. His "County Highpoints" book is quite a feat. The map-work must have been enormous. He has single-handedly (imo) made county highpointing just as viable a hobby as state highpointing. Without his book the hobby would be just the domain of a very few.

I enjoyed our couple days together. He is amiable and funny and definitely a good hiking partner!

Ken Jones

Andy's "den" at his house in Tucson is an amazing place. It's loaded with maps and guidebooks (like mine), and with old mining paraphernalia (unique). My wife had trouble getting me out of it when we visited after dragging the kids on a 12-mile hike.

The rest of the family was ready to go, but the hiker/map-hound in me wasn't anxious to leave. If you go on a road trip with Andy you'll meet "the cot." When I camp, I sometimes sleep on a pad under the stars; other times I use a tent. Andy's different. Andy has a folding cot on which he places his sleeping bag. Not a bad idea, but I'd never seen it done until I spent a week with Mr. Martin.

Andy's also an extreme driver. I managed to skip many miles of hiking in a week, because when Andy gets behind the wheel we can drive a lot closer to the peak than when I'm driving. County highpointers will always be grateful to Andy for pulling together the County Highpoints book. Where would we be without "the bible?"

David Olson

We have known Andy so long in county highpoint circles that we have attached a verb, "to martinize", to the sport. It means "to attain a highpoint with the least amount of effort." The ideal is to drive to the top, open the car door and put one's foot directly on the benchmark.

I have been with Andy Martin on two of his most notorious Martinizing attempts. The first time, San Miguel co. NM, Elk Mountain, I was driving. I drove to the top, but stopped 50 feet away from the top in order to make Andy exert some effort to attain the summit. The second time, Carbon co. UT, Monument Peak, Andy was driving. He drove all the way to the top, opened the car door and put his foot on the survey marker.

Then careful inspection showed that he had stomped on the Witness Marker. It took five move minutes of serious looking to find the benchmark. I doubt that Andy has yet to ideally-martinize a summit.

I accompanied Andy when he summited Little Costilla Peak in Colfax co. NM, thus completing all the counties in NM. I got to the summit 100 years before Andy, but waited ten feet away so that Andy could get the summit and the state before any- one else. When Andy came up he insisted that we stomp on the summit at the same instant, and so we did.

Roy Schweiker

I really don't know where to start about Andy Martin and county highpoints. Essentially he has served in roles that took several different people to accomplish for state highpoints:

And don't forget Andy's more recent work on prominent peaks. While this work is in its infancy compared to county highpoints, there are now prominent peak lists available for several states and a few states with the 50 most prominent climbed. It is not clear when the first map-checked prominence list of a state would have appeared without Andy's encouragement.

Frederick Lobdell

Andy pulled off the ultimate Martinization on one of the county HPs of Utah where he was able to drive to the summit, open the car door, and put his left foot on the bench mark. His conflict between spending money (he's a bit on the thrifty side) or spending physical effort is alluded to in my Tucker County, WV trip report on the COHP Web site, and Andy also said something similar on one of the Utah cohps when he was agonizing over spending money to ride a chair lift "when suddenly a tractor beam lifted us to the top of the mountain".

Andy is also an excellent off-road driver, much better than I am. He drove me to the top of Rice Peak, AZ up a stream bed in a Mitsubishi Montero. On more than one occasion Sarah (his wife) asked to be let out, requests which Andy ignored. After we passed each of the rough spots Sarah told their daughters, "Girls, your father is a wonderful driver."

Andy also collects mining memorabilia. He has several cartons of blasting cap tins and other stuff in his den, and a mining tram car in his back yard. Some time back on the cohp forum I posed the riddle, "Why does Andy Martin have a mining tram car in his back yard?" One of the responses "Because his wife won't let him bring it in the house."