BwB Annual Awards
Matterhorn 4478m, P1038m, above the Gorner Glacier, Switzerland - photo Alastair Govan
(released under the GNU Documentation license (https://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl-1.3.en.html)
BwB already recognises peak-bagging achievements through the P-Index League, Halls of Fame and medals system. These focus only on numbers. We also like to give other awards on a wider set of criteria – the BwB Annual Awards.
There are four Awards available each year:
Lifetime Achievement Award
This Award is for people who have made a very significant achievement in peak-bagging over an extended period of time. Examples might include, but are not limited to:
· Multiple major list completions.
· A peak-bagger reaching the end of her/his ‘career’, either through age, infirmity, injury, or other vicissitudes of life.
Peak-bagger of the Year
This Award is for people who made the most out-standing peak-bagging achievements in the year, either at home, abroad, or both.
The criteria for judging will include one or more of the following, although not exclusively confined to them:
· A significant (first) completion of a list - for example, a mountain range, country or a large-country state/province.
· A pleasing, unusual, or imaginative, completion of a new P-category list.
· A challenging self-organised expedition to bag peaks in a remote region, or a technically difficult mountain.
· A large number of peaks bagged in a single day, or other limited period of time.
· A focus on high and/or technically difficult peaks in the year.
· Continuing/starting peak-bagging despite significant personal difficulties in the year (e.g. physical or mental illness, injury, a disability, age etc.).
HoFMeisters’ Award
We would hope that all BwB Members and Associates are aware and sensitive to the impact of our pastime on other people and the environment.
This Award is for those who have made a significant effort beyond the norm to peak-bag in the year in a way that lowers or reverses that impact. These people may accumulate less summits more slowly, and so might not achieve a medal, or even a Hall of Fame. The Award recognises this way of peak-bagging and seeks to celebrate it. Such activities and behaviours might include, but are not limited to:
Ways to lessen or off-set carbon footprint.
Using money and other resources to help the areas where you are peak- bagging.
Responsible hiking and camping.
‘Clean’ ascents, involving, for example, alpine-style techniques on major peaks, or without supplementary oxygen.
Contributing resources, data etc. to the scientific study of upland environments.
Helping other climbers in difficulty, and not succumbing to ‘summit-fever’.
Contributing knowledge, time and effort to mountain rescue services.
These are not the only possible criteria for the Award, which seeks to be a very open and innovative category. You can find other examples in Appendix 1 of the BwB Manual.
Contribution to International Peak-bagging Award
This Award is for people who have made a major contribution to the world of international peak-bagging by prominence ‘off the hill’ (for example, peak-listing, data collection, management and manipulation, website construction, development and maintenance, club activities, arts, photography etc.).
The Annual Awards Process
In the spring each year, after the annual Tables are published, nominations for the awards for the previous year are invited from all BwB Forum Members and Associates. This excludes the HoFMeisters' Award, which is in the gift of the BwB HoFMeisters only. The nominations are then judged by a panel, consisting of some or all of the HoFMeisters, and also award winners from previous years who are willing to join the judging panel.
Recognition for the Awards
Award winners have their names recorded, with a citation, on a new sub-page each year, in this section of the website, starting from 2022.
Most BwB people are content with the ‘warm glow’ of reaching a Hall of Fame, medal or award. For those who would like something to mark receiving an BwB Annual Award, an e-certificate is offered.