Mountain-loving doctor climbs to great heights

A North Carolina family physician and outdoor buff revels in having reached the tallest peak in each of the 50 states.

By Damon Adams, AMNews staff. Aug. 18, 2003.

Compared with Mount McKinley, Britton Hill is a pipsqueak.

The hill is 345 feet high, slightly longer than a football field set upright. Yet it's the highest point in Florida, a pancake-flat state where a speed bump is practically a summit.

Then there's Mount McKinley, pride of Alaska and highest peak in North America, a snowy behemoth that reaches 20,320 feet -- nearly four miles -- into the heavens.

Douglas Butler, MD, has conquered them both. Britton Hill, with a little leg work. Mount McKinley, with a lot of mountaineering skill.

When he topped Mount McKinley this spring, Dr. Butler joined a short list of mountain buffs who have reached the highest points in all 50 states. Only 130 people have achieved the feat, according to the Highpointers Club, a group that tracks the treks. Only one other physician, Richard Birrer, MD, is among them.

"You get to see things and experience things that you would never think existed. You go across some of the ice formations and look into the crevices and see some of the bright blue ice. On some of the ridges, when you look down, it's like seeing aerial shots," said Dr. Butler, a family physician based in Crumpler, N.C., who works locum tenens.

"You look down on the tops of clouds. I looked down on lightning once when I was in Mexico. That was weird."

Dr. Butler, 48, has always liked the outdoors. He got interested in adventure travel while in his 30s, a fascination that took him to the Amazon and the Galapagos Islands. He photographed polar bears in Canada.