Word of the day – highpointing

Mountain peaks

I came across the word highpointing the other day in a list of a blogger’s hobbies. It’s not a word I’m familiar with so I looked it up.

According to Wikipedia highpointing is “is the sport of visiting (and finding) the point with the highest elevation within some area (the “highpoint”), for example the highest points in each county within a state. It can be considered a form of peak bagging.”

Peak bagging (a.k.a. hill bagging, mountain bagging, Munro bagging, or just bagging) involves climbing a collection of mountains or hills – often those above a certain height or with a particular feature. Munro bagging, for example, involves climbing as many Scottish hills over 3000 ft (914.4m) as possible. Such peaks are known as Munros and named after Sir Hugh Munro (1856–1919), who was the first to catalogue them.

Another example of peak bagging is the Three Peaks Challenge, which involves climbing the three highest peaks in England (Scafell Pike), Wales (Snowdon / Yr Wyddfa) and Scotland (Ben Nevis / Beinn Nibheis) within 24 hours.

Are you a highpointer or peak bagger? Is this sport practised in your country? If so, what’s it called?

8 thoughts on “Word of the day – highpointing

  1. In the Netherlands the highest point is just 300 and so much meters, no more as a 1000 feet, so for high pointing we have to cross some borders.

  2. With the highest point in this country being around 170 m, highpointing is not a sport practised much here.. 😉

  3. Isn’t the three peaks challenge also the name for climbing three Yorkshire peaks Ingleborough, Whernside and Pen-y-ghent? (e.g. here)

  4. Strikes me that this might be a peculiarly British pursuit (just the right mix of healthy outdoors discomfort and slightly nerdy list-making).

    An interesting Wikipedia page…

    http://nn.nf/7308

    …lists the ‘county tops’ – i.e. the highest points of each of the traditional counties of England and Wales – from Snowdon (historic Caernarfonshire, modern Gwynedd) at over 1000 metres, to the Lincolnshire Fens (the traditional Parts of Holland) whose highest point is at 8m above sea level.

    I think even I could bag that one.

  5. I’ve never heard the term “highpointing” or any of its relatives before, but I’m aware there are climbers who try to go to every US state and reach the highest point in each one.

  6. In New England there is the 4000 foot club. (The only states in New England this high are Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont.) My grandmother has climbed all but one of these. The highest is Mt. Washington at just over 6000 ft, which I’ve climbed. In California, there seems to be no equivalent because there are far too many high mountains. The highest mountain (Mt. Whitney) is 14000 ft.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *