MY first introduction to the phrase '' heaven up-histedness '' came in my room at Rock and River , a comfortably rustic lodge tucked into a birch-rich mountain cleft outside the town of Keene , N.Y . It was Orson Scofield Phelps , according to the text accompanying the man 's photo , hung on the wall , who coined the term after blazing the first trail to the summit of nearby Mount Marcy , New York 's highest peak , in the 1800s .