2023

En route to Bumbag Khairkhan Uul 3470m-P1806m, Mongolia  - photo Deividas Valaitis

(released under the GNU Documentation license (https://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl-1.3.en.html) 

Lifetime Achievement Award:  Robert (Bob) Packard

For over sixty years of prolific and list-leading peak-bagging, in the USA and overseas

Robert was born in Portland, Maine, USA in 1936, growing up on the family farm.  He climbed his first mountain, Mt Katahdin 1605m, P1307m (Maine State HP) in 1958.  He is now Professor Emeritus of Mathematics from Northern Arizona University, from which he retired in 1996, in Flagstaff, Arizona, where he currently lives.   In 1978 he climbed his first foreign summit, Orizaba 5636m, P4922m (Mexico National HP).

Bob was an accomplished runner, winning many races, several championships and having held ten US age records in the over-40 category at State and National level. He also became known in Arizona for his exploits in the Grand Canyon, having hiked ~6,000 miles in that geological feature, climbed ~160 interior buttes (several technical), explored ~100 side canyons and is currently one of only three to have hiked its complete length below the rim on both sides of the Colorado River. 

He has completed or leads in record numbers of peak lists of many types on multiple websites (100+ completed lists on Peakbagger – see here), having climbed a record ~7,400 P300ft summits, also leading the BwB P100m and P300m lists and topping the Career Total Leaderboard on ListsofJohn – see here.  He also led at P600m until 2022, and headed the P1500m Ultras list until 2011. His friends use the verb “Packardize”, which means to complete a list before it exists! He has been to the highest, most prominent and most isolated point of every US state and 199 of the 200 highest P300ft peaks in the Contiguous 48 States (CONUS).

Bob has completed the county high points of twenty-nine US states (a record) and was the first to complete the six New England states and the first (of three to date) to complete the eleven Western CONUS states.  He was the first to complete the fifty-seven CONUS Ultras.  He has climbed twenty-seven of the world fifty most prominent and forty-four national highpoints, including such well-known high peaks as Ararat 5137m, P3611m (Turkey), Damavand 5609m, P4666m (Iran) and Elbrus 5642m, P4741 (Russia), technical peaks such as Bolivar 4981m, P3957m (Venezuela) and Cook 3724m P3724m (New Zealand), and less well-known Thabana Ntlenyana 3482m, P2390 (Lesotho), Turquino 1974m, P1974 (Cuba), Apo 2954m, P2954 (Philippines) and Sage 521m, P521m (British Virgin Islands). Further details of Bob’s many peaks and lists are detailed on his Peakbagger home page – see here.

2023 Peak-bagger of the Year Award – Deividas Valaitis

Deividas Valaitis achieved a world record in 2023 by climbing sixty-four new Ultras, in ninteeen countries (including nine with no previous logs on Peakbagger.com), surpassing his own record of fifty-two in 2022 (the previous record of thirty-nine had stood since 2014).

Born and raised in Vilnius, Lithuania, Deividas’s passion for mountains ignited two decades ago and has only grown stronger since. Now residing in Prague, Czechia, with his wife, he combines his love for the mountains with family time, sometimes hiking with his daughter. His initial explorations were random, but after bagging around one hundred peaks, he adopted a more systematic approach using Peakbagger.com. His true passion lies in climbing unreported peaks and venturing into areas where few have dared to go before. A prime example is his recent expedition to Mongolia, which included eight Ultras with no previous Peakbagger logs. Deividas's other recent trips to Sierra Leone, Sao Tome and Principe, Algeria, and Cambodia further demonstrate his dedication to exploring new frontiers.

Alongside his peak-bagging pursuits, Deividas works as a Business Analyst and IT Consultant. His professional skills in analysis and organization have greatly contributed to his methodical approach. In 2023, Deividas climbed peaks in Algeria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Costa Rica, France, Greece, Guatemala, Laos, Lithuania, Mongolia, Nicaragua, Philippines, Portugal, Romania, Sao Tome and Principe, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Tanzania, Thailand, and the USA. He has also set foot in more than a hundred countries and climbed in over eighty countries globally.

Deividas has made significant contributions to the peak-bagging community. He played a key role in automating the BwB yearly report, greatly saving time for the BwB HoFMeisters. Additionally, he created and manages the side project p600.org (see here), which aims to become a valuable resource for peak-baggers worldwide. Using his networking skills, Deividas often collaborates with local guides and fellow climbers to achieve his goals.

HoFMeisters’ Award – David Jamieson

For a two-month European peak-bagging journey in 2023 by rail, bus and boat, taking 130 trains to cover 7,968 kilometres. A window on a possible future of sustainable bagging in a world of integrated transport. With e-bikes and charging points becoming more available, car-free bagging is becoming easier - at least in some parts of the world.

David is a Yorkshireman who has lived most of his adult life in Scotland. When on family holidays as a boy in the 1970s he always wanted to venture beyond the campsite or beach, often begging his non-hiking and baffled parents to drop him off and pick him up at a pre-agreed location so he could “go for a long walk”. At seventeen he and best mate Wedgy took a train to the hitherto unknown mountains of North Wales, braving rain, sunstroke, huge packs, blisters and teenage hangovers in a bold pursuit of Eryri’s (Snowdonia’s) prominent peaks.

The bagging bug bit hard, and so once at university, he eagerly joined the Outdoor Pursuits Society to ensure regular minibus trips to the Yorkshire Dales, Lake District, North Wales and Scotland, as well as an end-of-year excursion to the French Alps. However, the best thing he bagged on these weekends away was a long-term girlfriend and now wife Deana, who foolishly followed him back to North Wales whilst he trained as an ecologist with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), then to Scotland where he studied a Master’s degree in Environmental Management. Deana and James eventually settled down in Scotland, completing the Munros and other hills of interest, whilst rearing two fabulously active sons, and spending summer, autumn and winter holidays amongst the high mountains of Europe, Africa, South America and, most recently, New Zealand.

Now retired from an environmental career in local government and the charity sector, David is keen to explore even more of the world’s high places, as well as its remarkable cultural and natural highlights. Climbing Mont Blanc 4810m, P4697m in 1989, whilst the French tricolore was displayed in lights on the Argentière Glacier as France celebrated its 200th “Bastille Day” anniversary, was one of these defining highlights.  It was matched by his own fiftieth birthday celebration amongst friends as the sun rose on the summit of Kilimanjaro 5895m, P5885m on 28th January 2016. David reached his personal “high” in 2018 on Chachani 6057m, P1963m, whilst learning the Inca history of Peru. His mountain mantra is a paraphrase of Rene Daumal  … "what is above knows what is below, but what is below does not always know what is above. One climbs, one endures, one sees. One descends, one aches, one sees no longer ... but one has seen, and one remembers forever”.