PEAK BAGGING EXPLAINED

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What Is Peak Bagging?
Peak bagging is the pursuit of climbing summits according to a defined list or set of criteria. Unlike mountaineering focused on a single famous objective, peak bagging emphasizes breadth: moving across landscapes, ranges, and regions to systematically climb peaks that meet specific standards. For many practitioners, it blends hiking, scrambling, navigation, endurance, and long-term planning into an ongoing personal project.

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How Are Peaks Defined?​

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 - Elevation: the height of a summit above sea level and is the most intuitive way to measure a mountain. Many classic peak lists—such as “14ers”—are defined purely by elevation thresholds. While elevation captures absolute height, it does not necessarily reflect how distinct or visually dominant a peak is relative to its surroundings.

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 - Prominence: how much a peak rises above the lowest saddle connecting it to any higher terrain. In other words, it captures how independent a mountain is. A peak with high prominence stands out clearly from nearby summits, even if it is not extremely tall. Prominence-based lists tend to highlight mountains that feel significant on the landscape rather than minor bumps along a ridge.

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 - Isolation: the distance from a summit to the nearest higher peak. It reflects how far one would have to travel before encountering higher ground. While isolation is less commonly used as a primary list criterion, it adds another way of thinking about how solitary or dominant a peak is within its region.

 

The List I’ve Chosen

Major Prominence Peaks of the Lower 48. The list I am working on consists of all peaks in the contiguous United States with at least 2,000 feet of topographic prominence. There are 1,225 such peaks. This list spans deserts, forests, volcanoes, alpine ranges, remote wilderness, and everything in between. It includes many famous summits—such as Mount Whitney, Mount Rainier, Mount Hood, Mount Shasta, Pikes Peak, Mount Washington, and Mount Hood—as well as hundreds of obscure and little-visited mountains that most people have never heard of. My long-term goal is to climb at least 1,000 of these peaks. What draws me to this list is its diversity: it includes iconic objectives and quiet high points alike, rewarding exploration rather than notoriety.

 

What’s Involved?

The peaks on this list vary dramatically. Some require serious commitment—multi-day backpacking trips, glacier travel, scrambling, or technical rock climbing. Others are surprisingly accessible, involving little more than a drive to the summit area and a short walk. Most peaks fall somewhere in the middle. These typically involve a mix of trail hiking, off-trail travel, cross-country navigation, occasional bushwhacking, and route finding. Each peak presents its own small puzzle, shaped by terrain, weather, and access.

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How I Go About It?

Throughout the year, I often string together week-long trips where I climb peaks all day, then drive my 4Runner to the base of the next objective. I usually car camp, keeping things simple, and often start hiking the next morning in the dark with a headlamp.

It’s not glamorous—and that’s intentional. The rhythm of moving, navigating, sleeping rough, and repeating the process day after day creates a stripped-down experience focused on terrain, weather, and effort.

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Why I Do It?
Peak bagging gives me a sense of adventure that feels both old-fashioned and deeply grounding. It’s about self-reliance and moving deliberately through wild places. The goal isn’t comfort or spectacle—it’s immersion. Each summit is a small act of exploration, and together they form a long, ongoing journey across the landscape.