By: Olivia Visser, Opinions Editor
Content warning: brief mention of ableism.
I’ve been fascinated with mountains ever since I can recall setting my eyes on one. There’s something so bold about local peaks that I’ve never been able to fully capture in words. In my teenage years, I realized people actually hike up these seemingly unreachable summits. When I began doing so myself, I was hooked.
BC is home to a sizable population of outdoor enthusiasts. Within this group, there’s a smaller, yet considerable, community of people who call themselves “peakbaggers.” A peakbagger is someone who hikes and climbs with the goal of reaching summits. The word “summit” refers to the highest point of a mountain; peakbaggers rarely end their hikes below this point. Those who participate in the hobby often keep a long list of their “successful” climbs, and follow strict rules to help them progress as a peakbagger. For instance, most peakbaggers refuse to “repeat” a hike, as they believe it takes time away from developing their ever-growing list of climbs. You’re considered a noteworthy peakbagger not for your experience with difficult climbs or personal obstacles that you overcome, but for the sheer quantity of summits you’ve attained.
To many people, these ideas sound silly. In retrospect, they do to me as well. However, peakbagging appeals to those with an obsessive drive to progress and crush personal goals. When I first started out, I was enchanted by the idea of having some sort of “proof” of my dedication to a hobby. I wanted to be one of those people who was well known for sharing their trip reports on forums and social media. I wanted to hike with people who had similar goals . . . until I didn’t.
Many of my experiences hiking with dedicated peakbaggers gave me a sense of disillusionment. Some of my old hiking partners were obsessed with travelling as quickly as possible, spending a short period of time on the summit, then descending at a speedy pace. Others showed no interest in accompanying me on hikes they had already completed, so I was forced to go alone. Hiking started to feel like a chore, rather than a fun activity. That’s not to mention the difficulty of mountaineering with a disability. I’ve been blocked by people on Facebook for disclosing medical issues, which led to a perpetual fear of sharing important information about my illnesses. Hiking should be for everyone, but it doesn’t always feel that way in the peakbagging community.
I’ve also come to the realization that peakbagging is inherently colonial. It views hiking as a sort of transactional experience, driven by a sense of entitlement over mountains. Mountaineering has a long history of being a form of colonization itself. More often than not, early colonists were the ones responsible for giving mountains their English names. The first mountain climbers in the 19th century would seek out prominent peaks to be known as the mountain’s “first ascender.” Nowadays, peakbaggers still search for unclimbed peaks to attach their legacy to.
The bare minimum a hiker can do to pay respect to the land is to research its history. Most mountains have names and stories relative to local Indigenous peoples. Some are sacred locations which deserve to be understood as a place of connection rather than a line in your growing list of hikes. Let’s face it: peakbagging is a trend. It may bring some excitement to feel like you’re accomplishing something unique and physically demanding, but it can also reek of entitlement and egoism if you’re not careful. I’d argue I have more fun now that I’ve learned to relax and enjoy nature at my own pace, without feeling the need to constantly share my accomplishments with others.
Settlers don’t own the mountains they climb, and it’s absurd to behave as if we do. There’s joy in developing a reciprocal relationship with nature, where we don’t carelessly take from the land but give back to it in small ways. Beyond doing internal work on your relationship with the land, you can conduct research, pick up litter, practice sustainable travel, and center Indigenous voices. It’s past time we decolonize mountaineering.
