Peak Bagging Can Lead To Bragging Rights Or Can Cost A Life

Stephen Hart waited until he turned 69 to became a "peak bagger." By age 80, he had climbed all 48 of the 4,000-foot mountains in New Hampshire, plus the five in Vermont and the 12 in Maine.

"It became a goal," said the retired school administrator from Randolph, Mass., who checked the last peak from his list when he climbed 4,049-foot Mount Abraham in western Maine in 1993.

Hart, now 82, hasn't hiked up a mountain since.

"There were no more worlds to conquer," he said. "Plus my knees. I shouldn't have been hiking. I was on borrowed time."

Hart's feat won him membership in a select fraternity of hikers who have reached the region's highest summits. His accomplishment is recorded with the Appalachian Mountain Club, which maintains a roster of such climbers.

The AMC began its 4,000-Footer Club in 1957, in part to encourage hikers to branch out from the popular Presidential and Franconia ranges to some of the region's less familiar areas.

The club has various levels, starting with the White Mountain 4,000-Footers and the New England 4,000-Footers, both of which Hart has climbed. A hiker can advance to the more exclusive New England 100 Highest Club, whose turf ranges from 3,764-foot Mount Coe in Maine to 6,288-foot Mount Washington in New Hampshire.

If the zest for climbing still lingers, hikers can attempt to join the even more select few who have done the 4,000-Footers or the 100 Highest during winter.

Throughout the White Mountains and beyond, hikers trying to achieve any of these goals are popularly known as "peak baggers," a term that Eugene S. Daniell III acknowledges is less than complimentary.

"It's mildly pejorative, but I use it as a vanity plate on my car," says Daniell, of Concord, N.H., who handles the paperwork for the 4,000-Footer Club.

"Some think it means you climb just to check things off on the list and you don't really enjoy the surroundings," he said. "But that's not true."

The 4,000-Footer Club is not unique. A similar club in New York, the Adirondack 46ers, is named for the original 46 peaks on its list. The Catskills has a 3,500-Footer club. North Carolina and Tennessee have the South Beyond 6,000 Club and Colorado its 14,000-Footers.

Peak baggers hike through their list at their own pace, with no special recognition given for speed.

"I had a friend who took 54 years. He climbed Moosilauke as a 14-year-old and he finished up at Sugarloaf at the age of 68," Daniell recalled. "This is not necessarily an athletic achievement. It's something that a lot of very average people can do."

Until this spring, the club knew of no serious accidents involving climbers in pursuit of the 100 Highest. But the unblemished record was broken in June when Jeffrey Rubin, a psychology professor at Tufts University, was killed while climbing the last peak on his 100 Highest list.

A Tufts colleague said Rubin, 53, was so obsessed with achieving his goal that he elected to press on alone up 3,861-foot Fort Mountain in heavy rain and high winds. Officials theorized that he became disoriented, fell into a stream and drowned.

While other peak baggers may not be as driven, Daniell acknowledged that many hikers push hard when they come to the last mountain on their lists.

"The normal reaction then, when you get that last peak, is disappointment. It's all over. You've come to the end of the road," he said.

Those who reach the goal and file an application with the AMC are given a scroll and a shoulder patch for their achievement.

"It's run strictly on the honor system," Daniell said. "I don't think anybody claims it without having done it. It's just not something that's worth lying about in order to get."

Applicants are asked to include an account of the ascent of their final peak, a requirement that enables climbers to share their experiences in becoming 4,000-Footer members.

The White Mountain 4,000-Footers have the most members: more than 5,400, plus nearly 200 who have climbed in winter. Roughly one in four goes on to do the New England 4,000's. And the 100 Highest has only 334 on its rolls, plus a mere 36 winter climbers.

The most daunting aspect of the 100 Highest may be the 15 or 16 that have no trails and require a grueling bushwhack to the summit. Among them is the mountain in Maine's Baxter State Park where Rubin died.

Winning a spot in the 4,000-Footer Club is a far different challenge than completing the Appalachian Trail, another popular goal among dedicated hikers.

Hiking the entire 2,100-mile footpath between Georgia and Maine requires a long, sustained effort and is often attempted by people longing for a break in their lives, Daniell said.

"The 100 Highest is something you do very sporadically," he said. "It doesn't really interfere with your regular life."