Introduction

This is the second report for the BwB International Peak-bagging Tables under the new format, comprising Halls of Fame for all the BwB prominence categories, and Progress Registers and Rolls of Honour for some. 

This is the second edition of the 2021 Tables.  There will be no more editions for 2021, and any further people joining the Tables will make their first appearance for 2022.

Review of the Year

2021 was again a challenging year, on all fronts. The COVID-19 Pandemic continued to dominate the news across the world, and had again a deep effect on the daily lives of so many people.  However, as in 2020, peak-baggers proved to be very resourceful.  Opportunities were seized upon to go peak-bagging, both at home and abroad, navigating around the often labyrinthine and ever-changing travel regulations.

One hundred and twenty-four people have been recorded for 2021 in the second edition of these Tables (ninety-nine in 2020), as well as eleven deceased baggers who feature in the Halls of Fame and/or Rolls of Honour.

The average age of those in the 2021 Tables is 57 years (55 years in 2020), with ages ranging between 6 and 92 years.   These are the numbers for each age band, with the percentage of the total shown in brackets:

• 75+: 7 people (6%)

• 55-74: 64 people (51%)

• 35-54: 32 people (26%)

• 18-34: 14 people (11%)

•   5-17: 7 people (6%).

63% (61% in 2020) of the people in the Tables this year reside in Europe, 34% in North America (35% in 2020), 1% in Asia and 2% in Australia.  10% of the people in the Tables self-identify as female, although this is likely to be a reflection of the percentage in the whole peak-bagging population.   It is encouraging, however, to see increasing numbers of younger people under the age of 40 joining the Tables

A new Table has been introduced to the BwB P-categories for the first time in 2021 – the P-Top 100.  This is the peak-bagging table for the peak-list that highlights the hundred mountains with the greatest prominence in the world.  For further details, see here. 

No more prominence Tables are likely to be added to the current BwB ‘stable’ of eight P-categories.  Of other established metric categories, the P-Top 50 list is catered for already at https://clachliath.com/top-50-ultras-of-the-world/.  Creating a table for P30m worldwide peak-baggers would not be possible, at least for now, due to lack of reliable prominence data at this level for much of the world.  However, a P-Index League will be introduced for 2022.

In my 2020 Report, I mentioned some peaks over 7000m in altitude that peak-baggers appearing in the Tables had climbed (see here).   To this list can now be added Pik Pobeda 7439m, P4446m and Lenin Peak 7134m, P2787m, climbed by Eric Gilbertson on a summer expedition in 2021.  A full list of 8000m and 7000m peaks climbed by BwB participants is now given below.

The people participating in these Tables are a diverse group, united by one passion – a love of the uplands of this world.  Some are committed mountaineers who have climbed 7000m and 8000m peaks, and/or completed the Seven Summits, but many are just hikers without the skills and desire to take on the greater risks of tackling the peaks in the highest ranges on Earth.  This is the beauty of climbing peaks by prominence, not height – everyone can participate and profit from the physical, mental and spiritual benefits of being outdoors on the uplands of this planet, whatever the level of their capabilities.

Obituaries

Each year in this Report there are short obituaries of any international peak-baggers who died in the year who feature in the BwB Halls of Fame, or appear in the Rolls of Honour.  In addition, there may also be a tribute to a person who died in an earlier year who appears in the Tables.

Fred Zalokar (1960 – 2021)

Fred tragically died in a fall near Mount Clark in the Yosemite National Park, California on 25th July 2021.

As well as a distinguished marathon runner, Fred was a very active peak-bagger internationally, having visited over seventy-five of the country high points in the world, the highest being Aconcagua (Argentina) in 1992.  In 1993 he successfully summitted the challenging Denali, the USA high point.  He travelled and peak-bagged in Central and South America, Europe, South-East Asia and New Zealand, as well as in the USA. 

With such an extensive international peak-bagging portfolio, Fred’s name is a worthy addition to the BwB Halls of Fame and Rolls of Honour.

At the time of writing his website is still available at http://fredzalokar.com/.

Ann Bowker (1936 – 2021)

Ann was born in 1936 in Watford, south-east England.

In the mid 1940’s her family took a trip to North Wales where Ann got her first taste of the mountains - they climbed Snowdon, the highest peak in Wales.  This successful endeavour was the only mountain her parents ever climbed, while for Ann it was the first of what was to become a lifelong obsession.

In 1964 Ann went on a Ramblers holiday to Glencoe in Scotland.  When a young man asked if she would like to explore a more exciting route up the Munro Bidean nam Bian, Ann said ‘yes’, and that is how she met Rowland.  A simple beginning to a lifelong interest in climbing mountains and travel.  Their passion for hill and mountain hiking, both in Britain and abroad, never ceased.

Ann completed the Munros and the Tops in 1986 and Corbetts in 1992 and hiked extensively in Wales, most notably on her trek along the ‘Dragon’s Back’ – the spine of Wales.

In 1992 Alan Dawson published his book “The Relative Hills of Britain”, in which he described the concept of Marilyns, a hill that is at least 500 foot higher than the land around it.  This figure later became standardised at 150 metres.  Ann obtained an early copy of this book, and from then on their hill-bagging in the UK was transformed.  They were at the forefront of Marilyn bagging, leading the field until 2001.  In 1998 Ann and Rowland climbed their 1500th Marilyn, Meall a’Bhainne.  Ann also completed the Grahams in 1999.

After retirement Ann used her computing background to set up her website Mad about Mountains, which was very innovative for the early 1990’s.  Her website had a page called “The Lake District – Today’s pictures” which featured her walks each day, including Keswick Rambling Club walks and National Park work parties.  It included an archive of previous walks, and a separate section on all the fells in the Wainwright guides with 360-degree panoramas from each fell.  There were also sections on Scotland, Wales, the Isle of Man and overseas.

Ann and Rowland made around six overseas trips a year, bagging new countries and climbing to the highest point in about fifty of them.  These included Mount Ararat in Turkey, Elbrus in Russia, Qurnat as Sawda in Lebanon, Punta do Pico in the Azores, Mount Catherine in Egypt and Mount Fuji in Japan.  The Traveller’s Century Club of California lists a generous 317 countries in the world, and Ann and Rowland both visited more than 200 on this list.  They also went on several solar eclipse holidays, combining one of these with a trip to the North Pole. 

Without Rowland, Ann returned to Africa in 1990 to make a successful ascent of Kilimanjaro, having failed to reach the summit with him in 1967, and also added Mount Meru on the same trip.  Again without Rowland, she made a successful ascent of Mont Blanc in 1992.

Ann was awarded an MBE Honour in 2003 by the Queen of the UK for services to Cumbrian Tourism.

She died peacefully on 26th March 2021 at Parkside Nursing Home, Maryport, Cumbria, England. 

 My thanks go to Lionel Bidwell, Ann and Rowland’s friend, for much of the text above.

Rowland Bowker (1930 – 2019)

Rowland, Ann’s husband, passed away two years before her.  They were an inseparable team, both in the UK and abroad, and pioneering peak-baggers in so many ways, at a time when travel was often a much more complicated and time-consuming affair than it is today.

Rowland, always an organised person, wrote his own obituary.  His text is given here:

Rowland was born in 1930 at Winterley in Cheshire and, after attending Sandbach school, studied Mathematics, Physics and Oceanography at Liverpool University.  After graduating in 1954, Rowland embarked on a spell of living and working overseas starting with a year studying Sociology in Stockholm.  This was followed by a spell of English teaching in Provence and a year teaching physics and chemistry in Ankara.

From 1957-60 he lectured in mathematics at Wednesbury Technical College.

The urge to live overseas soon came back, so in January 1961 he flew by Comet to work as an Educational Officer in Malaya.  This was followed by two years of teaching English, Mathematics and Science in Bangkok.

Rowland met Ann on a rambler’s holiday in Glencoe in 1964. Both keen hill walkers, they soon started bagging hills such as Munros, Corbetts, and the English and Welsh 2000ft summits.  From 1965 – 68 Rowland lectured at Stafford Polytechnic, while Ann lectured on Computer Science at Wolverhampton Polytechnic.

Rowland had not lost his passion for foreign travel, but Ann insisted that it should be combined with climbing some of the world’s significant mountains. Among the many overseas mountains they bagged were Mount Ararat, Kinabalu, Mount Fuji, Mount Etna, Kilimanjaro and Mount Whitney.

They had another spell overseas from 1968 to 1970 where Rowland was an Assistant Professor of Mathematics at the Imperial Ethiopian Air Force College in Addis Ababa. During this time they had their son Martin. Returning to the UK, Rowland lectured at Loughborough University, while Ann lectured at Trent Polytechnic.

Rowland took early retirement in 1982 and Ann followed suit a few years later. They retired to Cumbria which gave them an excellent base for hill walking.  They also became voluntary wardens for the Lake District National Park and joined Keswick Rambling Club.

Rowland Bowker

Looking forward

With the dark cloud of war upon Europe at the time of writing this Report, the COVID pandemic still ongoing (if, hopefully, receding), and the menacing effects of climate change, 2022 is already another challenging year. 

However, international travel restrictions are easing, and determined peak-baggers will undoubtedly seize opportunities for trips and expeditions, both at home and abroad.  Those in larger countries such as the USA will, as usual, have a wider variety of peaks to choose from without crossing national borders.  As predicted in my report last year, and confirmed for 2021, more progress is likely to be made in 2022 in the lower P-categories than the higher, where travel abroad is more necessary to increase bagging totals.  So peak-bagging trends may change, but not the peak-bagging habit.  Baggers without Borders, with its wide choice of Tables, is well-placed to provide peak-baggers with challenges to suit these changing times.

There has been good progress in widening BwB from my personal project in 2019 to something more akin to a collaborative one.  For 2019 I produced all the Tables, now we have six HoFMeisters for the task.  This new website has been set up in a manner to continue, should I be unable to do so myself.  BwB is now also on Instagram, thus opening another social media platform.  A BwB HoFClerk gmail account has been created, to which the other HoFMeisters have access.  The BwB Google Group has also been transferred to this account.  So, a lot of progress so far in 2021-22.

BwB was set up to link together international peak-baggers across the world in an online supportive community, on the premise that peak-baggers had far more in common than the differences that national borders created to divide them.  The Google Group has gone some way to achieving that aim and now, hopefully, the new website will continue and expand on that work. 

It is also to be hoped that more peak-baggers will join from across the world, in order to create an expanding online community.  

This website has started with a focus on the annual peak-bagging Tables, but it can expand and diversify as needed.  Possibilities for the future might be:

·      a community page for people to seek companions for planned trips and expeditions

·      an annual photo competition, with the winning entries forming a permanent gallery on this website

·      a blog about peak-bagging, in its many different aspects

·      a platform for a BwB annual publication, with trip reports, photos, and articles of interest

·      profile pages of peak-baggers entering the Hall of Fame or gaining Awards.

If such initiatives prove to have traction, the number of people helping will need to expand, as there are limits to what I can do with the time and IT skills that I possess. 

I wish you all a safe, rewarding and exhilarating peak-bagging year!

Mark Trengove

BwB HoFClerk

July 2022

Here are links to the 2021 Tables:

• P100m

• P300m

• P500m

• P600m

• P1000m

• P1500m

• P2000m

• P-Top 100