Solo Peakbagging %s

[blacknblue]

What do you think the percentage is of all those who have done a given list (NH 4Ks, ADK46, NEHH), who have done them solo? Not that every hike was solo, but that they attained the summit of each peak on the list at least once while hiking by oneself. What about the Winter version of those same lists?

My guess is that of the (thousands?) of NH 4Ks finishers, fewer than 20% have done them solo, and more like 5-10% for the Winter 4Ks. I would also guess that there are more solo peakbaggers in the ADKs.

I ask this out of pure curiosity, and not to suggest that only solo peakbaggers are real peakbaggers, or any nonsense like that. I starting thinking about this while taking a friend from PA up Moosilauke in March, started talking about the 48, and noted how frequently the W48 quest occurs with a partner or small cadre of hiking friends. That got me thinking about my own hiking and how many I had done solo versus with a friend or a small group.

Any thoughts on the percentages? Guesses? Facts? Pure conjecture?

 

[tb69wemt]

I am only guessing but I think the percentages would be higher maybe 40-50%. I do an awful lot of hiking mid week and see far more solo hikers than groups. I have done the vast majority of my peaks solo(except for my dog). I have completed my 4 k's (summer) many years ago and did about half with a partner or as a group. However my 4k's winter where mostly done solo. My 4k's in the dark have all been done solo (still have 15 to do). .....on a side note if you consider a dog as a partner than very few of my peaks have been solo.

 

[SAR-EMT40]

I am only guessing but I think the percentages would be higher maybe 40-50%. I do an awful lot of hiking mid week and see far more solo hikers than groups. I have done the vast majority of my peaks solo(except for my dog). I have completed my 4 k's (summer) many years ago and did about half with a partner or as a group. However my 4k's winter where mostly done solo. My 4k's in the dark have all been done solo (still have 15 to do). .....on a side note if you consider a dog as a partner than very few of my peaks have been solo.

I would think that it is fairly high also. 70-80%. It is difficult to coordinate with others and there aren't really that many that want to do this. I have only done ten or so, and at least 75% were done solo. I know if I intend to get serious about it most will be done solo.

And how can you say you did it with your dog and you did it solo.

Keith

 

[DiamondRidge]

I don't know about everyone else, but I've been doing alot of mine solo lately - especially my mid-week hikes when everyone else is out working for a living... Alot of the folks that I see out mid-week are solo as well, but alot of the ones I see on the weekends (when I tend to be out with others) are in groups... I guess it would depend on when one is able to hike?

 

[RoySwkr]

I think that when you consider couples and people who only hike in groups the solo percentage is fairly low if each person is counted only once, however lots of solo hikers are into doing multiple rounds which may skew the percentages of who you meet on the trail.

I have done each NH 4k at least once solo, and at least once not solo, not planned but as it happened. For winter NH 4k, many years ago I figured out that I had done all but 8 solo (Bonds, Twins, Owls Head, Isolation, and Tripyramids) so I went up Tripyramids by myself. As to the others, I'm not sure that I can do them truly solo (breaking out whole distance myself) and going after I know the trail is packed is only semi-solo.

 

[Elizabeth]

Do dogs count?

I've done 44 of the 48 NH 4Ks with no other companions, and agree with others' replies that solo hiking is quite common. I've also done more than half the peaks with dogs and a few with human friends. It isn't always easy to find hiking friends who are a match in both pace and ambitions. (I'm quite slow; but like a challenge.) Dogs, on the other hand, are happy to go back and forth along the trail, chase squirrels, etc. while waiting for their humans. However, dogs aren't great conversationalists and wouldn't generally be a whole lot of help in an emergency.

So, is hiking with dogs hiking "solo"?

 

[Tom Rankin]

Start a pole?

 

[dug]

The entire lists? 100%? I bet it's pretty low. I have done a majority solo (or with canine), but I have also done most of them with people, too.

 

[MichaelJ]

Probably half have been solo at one point or another. I've done a lot as repeats with una_dogger as well as with other people.

Just this past weekend I had an actual "need" to hike solo. I wanted to do a long traverse (Twins/Zealand/Hale), and mentally I just had to do it myself, no pacing with anyone else, no getting ahead or behind, nobody to see me struggling at the end. It was a very different experience than it would have been with anyone else along. It's not how I want to hike all the time, but now and then it's very refreshing.

 

[blacknblue]

The entire lists? 100%? I bet it's pretty low. I have done a majority solo (or with canine), but I have also done most of them with people, too.

Yes, I was interested in how many how done all of a particular list solo. I was guessing it was pretty low, too, just because of all the folks I see or hear who have done the 48, or are pursuing them, it often comes with "so-and-so is helping me with them" or some such statement. Spouses, friends, parent-child combos seem pretty common, which is great.

When I looked back over my lists and hiking journals, from the best that I could tell, I had done about 1/2 of the summits with company, and about 3/4 solo (and obviously some I've done each way).

For the record, I'd count hiking with a dog still hiking solo, unless the dog is carrying your pack.

 

[Ed'n Lauky]

Duffy came into my life after my first year in New England (2000--2001). After his arrival on the scene I don't think I've done any hikes without either Duffy or Lauky after Duffy died, except Monadnock which doesn't permit dogs and which I did when Lauky was too young to hike. That one was kind of a 'now or never' hike.

That being said, not counting my dog, I started hiking solo when I got started doing the final 33 of the 100 highest. I've pretty much hiked solo ever since. I've done the 48 all season a couple of times solo almost three times actually. I've also done the winter 48 solo except for the Twins and Galehead which we did with Big Earl and his group this past winter. Even that hike, we were pretty much alone all day with folks ahead and behind, but there was always Big Earl looking out for his "flock".

I've been asked a few times in the winter: "Are you doing this solo?" and my response is "Of course not, my dog's here with me."

 

[wisher]

I'm exactly halfway through the 4ks, and at this point have climbed all of them solo except for one - Moosilauke with my family. At this point, I'm sure I'll finish all of the 4ks solo shortly after finishing the list.

 

[Raymond]

I agree with Roy that the number of people climbing each of the peaks by him- or herself is probably pretty low. Sure there are some who climb the mountains multiple times, and may eventually climb them all solo, but half of all finishers? Or 70%? I doubt even one in ten who has completed a list will have done them all solo. Thirty of my initial round of White Mountain Four-Thousand Footers were soloed, and that seemed pretty good, to me, but maybe it wasn’t. I have no way of knowing. (I soloed only nine of the Adirondack High Peaks on my initial round.) Maybe Eric Savage is out there and will weigh in with some statistics.

Regarding the dog issue: I would say that if you’re hiking with a dog, you’re not hiking ‘‘solo’’. How can you be, if you have a companion? You didn’t leave the animal behind, did you? You wanted company, so you wouldn’t be alone. So you’re not.

Just because the dog can’t use a telephone to summon help if you sprain an ankle doesn’t change the fact that having it along changes the complexion, if that’s the word I want, of the hike. (Your sense of well-being, or uneasiness, or whatever.) Just knowing that there is another hiker in the vicinity changes that, too, but you don’t have to complete a hike without seeing another soul the entire time to claim that you climbed a mountain by yourself. You’d never climb Mount Washington if that were the case, except under the worst conditions. You just have to be on the hike by yourself, sans companions.

When I climbed Garfield, Galehead, and South Twin back in 2000, I walked and talked with an Appalachian Trail thru-hiker along part of Garfield Ridge. I still consider that to have been a solo hike. But the second time I climbed Mount Washington, I started with a friend. He disappeared somewhere on the Tuckerman headwall, and I never saw him again until I’d climbed to the top, had lunch in the old summit house (this was 1979), and descended all the way back to the Pinkham Notch Visitors Center, where I found him sitting on a railing talking with a couple young women. (He’d gotten tired, and had gone back down.) So most of that hike I was by myself, but I don’t and wouldn’t consider that to have been a solo hike.

 

[Hiking with Kat]

For me I like a variety of companionship. This weekend was a good example I did South and Middle Carter by my self on Saturday and Carragain with a group on Sunday. I imagine eventually I'll do all the 4,000 footers by myself but that will be over a very long time.

I get too much flack from my family about hiking by myself in the winter so those hikes are almost always group efforts.

 

[Dr. Dasypodidae]

Regarding the dog issue: I would say that if you’re hiking with a dog, you’re not hiking ‘‘solo’’. How can you be, if you have a companion? You didn’t leave the animal behind, did you? You wanted company, so you wouldn’t be alone. So you’re not.

When I climbed Garfield, Galehead, and South Twin back in 2000, I walked and talked with an Appalachian Trail thru-hiker along part of Garfield Ridge. I still consider that to have been a solo hike.

I agree with the not-solo if with dog (watch out for bears!).

But, what about a winter hike when you encounter someone else en route and share the trail breaking? This past February, I tried to solo unassisted (no car spots, etc.) the 48 NH4s with 27 completed over the first seven days. Then on day eight, I caught up with Bob and Gerry on top of Liberty (peak 28) and shared the breaking through about a foot of new heavy snow over to Flume (peak 29) and back. So, I considered that my solo unassisted attempt was over at 28 peaks. Weather and snow conditions became bad soon thereafter, so I would not have been able to complete the remaining 19 peaks solo unassisted anyway. But, what if I had headed up Liberty and Flume later in the day, as I commonly do, and never met Bob and Gerry, but would have benefitted from their broken out trail? I would have considered that my solo assisted attempt was still on track, as it is practically impossible to break out any trail, let alone every trail, in the winter now.

 

[JohnL]

To me, saying you cannot count a hike as being solo in the winter because someone broke trail ahead of you is analagous to saying you cannot count a hike on the Crawford Path because Abel Crawford broke and cut the trail ahead of you. Really? Maybe we should not count any of the early Spring hikes because someone cut up some blowdowns the day before you got on the trail. Nah! If you are hiking by yourself, you're solo.

JohnL

 

[DougPaul]

But, what about a winter hike when you encounter someone else en route and share the trail breaking?

Of course, any help in breaking the trail makes the hike easier whether you meet the other person/people or not.

Pre-cleared trails, maps, and conditions/trail/route beta also make the hike easier. The true purist would bushwack naked without navigational aids or prior info and abort the hike if he saw any sign that anyone else had been there... (Some technical climbers are like this--they only make one attempt on new routes.)

Roads and parking lots help too. In practicality, the modern hiker has to decide where to draw the line, stay on one side of it, and state his rules when claiming the accomplishment. (A lot like the games that technical climbers play.)

Doug

 

[Dr. Dasypodidae]

To me, saying you cannot count a hike as being solo in the winter because someone broke trail ahead of you is analagous to saying you cannot count a hike on the Crawford Path because Abel Crawford broke and cut the trail ahead of you. Really? Maybe we should not count any of the early Spring hikes because someone cut up some blowdowns the day before you got on the trail. Nah! If you are hiking by yourself, you're solo.

JohnL

Exactly, I would have counted Flume as a solo if I had hiked it later in the day or at night and not bumped into Bob and Gerry, even if it were a lot easier then than it was when breaking it out with them, wherein lies the irony.

Some questioned Charlie Porter's solo of the Cassin on Denali in 1976 because there were many others on the route at the time. However, Charlie climbed the entire route solo, never tied into anyone else's rope, and carried a long aluminum ladder for possible self-crevasse rescue on the SE Fork of the Kahiltna. I say that he soloed the Cassin, as climbing a steep ice route is not the same as sharing winter trail breaking in the Whites, which of course is much more difficult.

 

[Dr. Dasypodidae]

Pre-cleared trails, maps, and conditions/trail/route beta also make the hike easier. The true purist would bushwack naked without navigational aids or prior info and abort the hike if he saw any sign that anyone else had been there...

Agreed. Kind of like Guy Waterman's approach to the 48 NH4s in winter from the four different compass bearings.

Unfortunately, a lot of us have hiked the regular trails to the NH4s so many times, we will never be able to claim lack of prior info.

 

[Raymond]

Aron Ralston soloed the Colorado 14ers in winter, but I don’t know if he had to break trail on each and every hike or not. You could follow his standard, whatever it was.

I doubt he would not count one if he happened to find the trail broken out, but maybe he would go home for the day or find a different mountain. It may be difficult to NOT find the trail broken out on some of them, I have no idea.