The other day during a workout at the gym I got to chatting with a casual friend who I hadn’t seen in a few years. He asked if I was still climbing?
“Well not really climbing” I responded. “But I still regularly hike to mountain tops.
No, Bill, not the Tetons, but rather the more obscure seldom visited summits mostly In defense of these less than technical objectives I suggested that success often depended on common sense.
To drive home the point I used the personal example of doing 1983 different idaho peaks to date without serious mishap
Without hesitation he replied “That doesn’t sound like common sense.”
Ha! He got me there.
Thankfully I didn’t dig the hole any deeper by telling him about the really nonsensical repeat stuff, like 1237 ascents of Kelly Mountain or the 800 times to the top of North Menan Butte.
now 809
Nor did I mention my little pet project called the ‘Senior Citizen Standard’ where the goal for those age 65 & up is the reach 100 summits (including repeats) per year.
2024 represented my 14th consecutive year for 100+ peaks.
By the way, my best year was 408 summits at age 66 in 2012. All to say there’s hope for the gray head baldies among us.
Again, I didn’t mention these additional peregrenations for fear of creating the impression that peakbagging isn’t a common sense pursuit.
Maybe I should have just told Bill “I love to get outdoors to explore and get immersed in the natural world. The counting business just helps with motivation.
It’s a lifetime hobby I hope to be doing to age 80 and beyond.”
Now that makes sense.
Rick Baugher has been actively climbing Idaho mountains since 1980.
He counts about 35 earliest known ascents of Idaho 11’ers and a similar number of EKA’s of Idaho 10’ers.
He has ascended ~2500 peaks in the combined states of Idaho-Montana-Wyoming Rick & Linda live in Idaho Falls. They recently celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary and have 2 daughters and 2 grandsons.
But who’s counting when you’re having fun?