Why you shouldn't bother with the 'peak bagging' hiking trend

Peak bagging is a catchphrase outdoorsy folk like to use to describe the desire to summit mountaintops.

The pastime usually includes a collection of mountain- or hill- top photos flooding Instagram feeds and obsessive, Type 2 fun hikers seeking out peaks to add to their collections of ‘tall things conquered’.

I first stumbledupon the peak bagging concept while living in Colorado, where ‘bagging fourteeners’ is any Coloradans favourite pastime. With over 50 mountains that exceed 14,000 feet in elevation and offer a range of difficulties, it’s easy to see why it’s become a rite of passage to bag them all – and then brag about it.

I began training to tackle the righteous 14ers by summiting lesser mountains but moved to New Zealand before I completed any. Upon arriving, I set my sights on the mountains around my new Christchurch home. Coupled with Further Faster’s Mountain Dog Challenge – which encourages dog parents and their pooches to summit ten different peaks in Canterbury and post photos on their Facebook group – I set out to peak bag New Zealand.

I’m outdoorsy and meticulously goal driven – signing up for such a challenge meant I absolutely had to complete it, as fast as possible, and it didn’t matter if I enjoyed the process. I ticked off the mountains with my partner and dog every weekend, adding summits outside of Canterbury for fun.

I’m not a fun hiking partner at the best of times – I usually complain the entire way, scowling when I reach summits, knowing I have to climb the same route back down – and I began treating each hike as if it were a chore to be endured. My chipper partner dutifully tagged along on my relentless journey, offering words of encouragement and scorched almonds along the way.

It wasn’t until we bagged Mount Barrosa, a 3.5km one-way hike with a 1364m elevation gain that I confessed all this uphill was making me hate hiking – a pastime I used to love. Mt Barrosa is not the toughest hike, but after a long exposed slog and a treacherous downhill that led to a persistent knee injury, I called it quits.

While cursing on the descent, I realised I hated the journey and was pathetically only doing it to for the bragging rights that came with the summit photos. I wasn’t enjoying the surrounding nature, only thinking about how much further I was from the end.

That was three years ago, and I haven’t bagged a peak since. The notion that I had to bag every peak seemed silly if I wasn’t enjoying it. I decided to toss the notion and focused on hikes I actually enjoyed – rambling journeys over hilly landscapes, many kilometres through flat tussocklands, and traverses crossing riverbeds in valleys – not a peak in sight.

Social media and the opportunity to one-up hikers has led us to believe we ‘have to’ summit these peaks, but we have to remember – for whom are we climbing this mountain?

If you’re someone who enjoys the process, great, but if you’re considering dabbling in the notion, let me stop you. Especially if you’re a Type A to-do-list-maker, the idea of peak bagging can be a harmful way to suck the joy out of nature.

So, instead, just go outside to have fun, breathe in nature and walk that straight, flat path if that’s what you feel like doing.