Department Of Deconstruction–The Cult Of Summit Bagging: The LA Times takes an interesting look into the history and psychology of serial summitting. With so many glory hounds and amateurs going for either the Seven Summits (the highest seven peaks on the seven continents) or the Fourteen 8,000ers, the purists are griping that the sport of big mountain climbing has been turned into a money-grubbing, ego stroking parody of its glorified early years, when motives were personal and quests were quixotic. Here’s Reinhold Messner, the first man to bag the world’s fourteen highest mountains:

Messner, as is his wont, has been vocal about the commercialism that has gripped his sport, particularly the swarm pursuing Everest. “This Everest is no longer my Everest. Nor is it the same mountain the pioneers knew,” he wrote in Climbing magazine five years ago. “Yet it remains the most prestigious peak in the world, apex of all vanities. At the same time it has become a substitute, a kind of badge of courage the peak bagger would love to flaunt on his lapel back home, without having to assume the necessary responsibility in the field.”

A few interesting tid bits. Youngest person to bag the seven summits: 22-year-old Britton Keeshan, an American college student and grandson of TV’s Captain Kangaroo (no, he didn’t hop to the top). Fastest to hit all Seven: well-known climbing guides Rob Hall and Gary Ball, who did the circuit in just 214 days (both men are now dead, killed in the mountains). The next number to pay attention to: twenty-one. Turns out some of the 14 8,000ers have multiple summits, and no one has hit them all. The race is on…



Climbaholic Ed Viesturs: “Dammit, I’m due to polish off the fourteen next year, and NOW they raise the number…?!”