Peak bagging

Peak bagging (also hill bagging, mountain bagging, or among enthusiasts, just bagging) is a popular activity for hillwalkers and mountaineers in which they attempt to reach the summit of each peak in a region above some height, or having a particular feature.

Peak bagging can be distinguished from highpointing. In peak bagging, the targets are the peaks of mountains or hills, and the popular lists usually require that the target pass some threshold of prominence. In highpointing, the goal is to reach the highest point in some geographic area (e.g., county, state, or even country).

Sometimes the highpoint is not a mountaintop. Suppose a rectangular county has a 5,000-foot-tall hill at its center, but its northwest corner reaches an elevation of 6,000 feet on the gentle slopes of a 10,000-foot mountain in the next county. The hill at center is the highest peak in the county, but the northwest corner is the highpoint.

Styles

For some peak baggers, simply being present at the highest point is sufficient to check the summit off the list. This allows for driving to car-accessible summits and stepping out of the vehicle and declaring the summit "climbed." While this extreme case is scoffed at by most mountaineers, there are certain circles for which it is the norm, and in fact it would be almost ridiculous to visit certain very non-prominent peaks and highpoints any other way.

Drive-ups are allowed by the U.S. State Highpointers club and by the increasingly popular County Highpointers club, whose members are collectively attempting to reach the highest point in all 3,142 U.S. counties.

Note that dozens of county highpoints in the western United States pose serious climbing challenges by all routes. It is only when the highpoint is a mere hill or bump in a midwestern cornfield that the issue of driving to the "summit" arises.

Various organizations have adopted various rules for what to do when a peak is on private land or otherwise inaccessible, whether off-road vehicles may be used, etc.

Some peak baggers increase the challenge by completing a list of summits within a time limit, or only in winter. Often there are detailed rules for these advanced games too, such as precise definitions of "winter". (This was probably taken to its logical extreme by some early members of the Scottish Mountaineering Club, who apparently considered a "Munro" only fully bagged when ascended in "full conditions" - snow cover and a 'white-out'.)

Arguments for and against

Traditional climbers or adventurers may argue that bagging devalues the experience of climbing in favour of the achievement of reaching some arbitrary point on a map; that bagging reduces climbing to the status of stamp collecting or train spotting; that is seen by some as obsessive and beside the point.

Some baggers point out that making a list of peaks to climb and attempting to finish the list does not detract from one's ability to enjoy the climbing experience as any purist mountaineer might. For these people, peak bagging is simply a motivation to keep reaching new summits.

There is also an environmental concern, that encouraging the climbing of certain mountains that have nothing else to recommend them has caused trail damage from erosion through heavy use, and, where mountains have no trails, created trails. Proponents do not dispute that this has occurred, but note that large animals also create paths and that many peakbaggers become active in maintaining trails and aware enough to mitigate damage they may otherwise cause, more so than casual hikers. Furthermore, as any list will include less-visited summits, it may tend to reduce footfall on more popular hills which tend to suffer more from erosion.

Worldwide

The Seven Summits are the highest peaks in each continent, from the Vinson Massif in Antarctica to Everest in Asia.

The Eight-thousanders are the fourteen mountains over 8,000 m in height, all in the Himalaya and Karakoram ranges in Asia.

In the British Isles

The hills of Britain and Ireland are classified into a large number of lists for bagging purposes. Among the better known lists are the following:

The Munros: a selection of hills in Scotland over 3000 feet (914.4 m). The list was originally compiled by Sir Hugh Munro.
The Corbetts: hills in Scotland between 2500 and 3000 feet (762 and 914.4 m), with a relative height of at least 500 feet (152.4 m).
The Marilyns: hills in the British Isles that have a relative height of at least 150 m, regardless of distance, absolute height or other merit. There are currently 1554 Marilyns in Britain and 453 Marilyns in Ireland.
The Wainwrights: the 214 hills in the English Lake District that have a chapter in one of Alfred Wainwright's Pictorial Guides to the Lakeland Fells.
The Hewitts — hills in England, Wales or Ireland over two thousand feet (610 m) high with a relative height of at least 30 m.

In the United States

Popular bagging challenges in the US include:

The 54 Colorado fourteeners.
All Fourteeners, mountains over 14,000 feet (4,267 m) in height — Colorado’s 54, 15 in California and Mount Rainier in Washington.
The highest point in each of the 50 US states.
The Sierra Peaks Section of the Sierra Club maintains a list of peaks in the Sierra Nevada, and a series of emblems (levels) for climbing a large number of them. Others peakbagging sections of the club include the Desert Peaks Section, which climbs the peaks of deserts in the Southwestern U.S. and Baja Mexico, and the Hundred Peaks Section, which bags all the 277 peaks in Southern California over 5000'.
The 46 highest peaks in New York's Adirondack Mountains (or rather, the list of 46 peaks once thought to be the highest. Successful completers are eligible for membership in the Adirondack Forty-Sixers)
The 48 peaks over 4,000 feet (1,219 m) in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.
All peaks in New England over 4,000 feet (1,219 m)
The highest 100 peaks in New Hampshire
The highest 100 peaks in New England.
The "Fifty Finest" peaks in New England (those with the most topographic prominence)
All peaks in the Catskill Mountains over 3,500 feet (1,067 m). Those who climb these, plus four of them a second time in winter, are eligible for membership in the Catskill Mountain 3500 Club.
The Northeast 111: The White Mountain 48, the Adirondack 46 and 14 Maine peaks, five in Vermont and two Catskill summits over 4,000 feet (1,219 m).
The Southern Sixers, or South Beyond 6000: all 40 peaks above 6,000 feet (1,828 m) in the southern Appalachians, which are in either North Carolina or Tennessee.

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