Mount St. Helens famous went from 9,677 ft to 8,363 ft back in 1980.
The Mazamas climbing club, IIRC, used to have a cert for people who climbed all the 10k+ foot high mountains in the PNW. So the lowering didn’t affect that milestone.
That’s a good point: the answer to what counts as summitting depends on the rules of whatever climbing club is keeping track.
If you are climbing purely for your own pleasure, then you just climb to the top, have your buddy snap a couple of photos of you standing at the very highest point, and that’s it. I am not a member of a professional mountain climbing association, so I don’t know what additional steps may be necessary to make your achievement officially official, if that’s even a thing.
It would depend on the certifying organization.
The AMC only counts summits in NH’s 4K peaks as those walked from the trailhead and back (or to an alternate “bottom” trailhead). Any mechanical means to climb or descend (e.g up on foot and down on the Mt. Washington Cog railway, or the reverse) doesn’t count.
If you’re dead, how do you register your claim that you made it to the summit? 
It’s interesting that the AMC apparently has more rigorous rules about not dying on the descent than Everest, considering thatthey allow dogs as members of the 4000-foot club.
I once read a sci-fi story describing how two human beings could communicate even when out of earshot. Probably never happen.
I recall watching a documentary in which a couple of climbers on an Everest summit attempt were being observed by someone in a lower camp with a telescope. In the event that they both died during the descent, the observer could serve as a witness to the fact that they had summitted. If only one of them had died during the descent, the other could serve as the witness.
According to this book I have from the Colorado Mtn. Club, you didn’t summit unless you gained at least 1000 feet in altitude. So, if you drive to the top of Mt. Evans amd then hike up the last 50 feet, you can still sign the register but it doesn’t really count. If you did the traverse from Mt. Bierstadt it does count, also if you parked at the lake and scrabbled up from there.
All the mountains I’ve hiked up in Colo. have a register at the summit (well, now that I think of it, I don’t remember one on Evans) and if you’ve found the register I consider that close enough to the summit. Pro tip, take your own pen. Some of them have pens, a lot of them do not.
Groups like the AMC. ADK and CMC have rules about summitting because they give out patches and certificates for completing a list (AMC 4000’ers, ADK 46r and CMC 14,000’ers). Which peaks make the list and which climbs count are rules of the game, but only of that specific game.
For the NH 4000’ers there are two main groups that track the lists. The AMC has the 48 (although it used to be 46) and the Trailwrights have 72 - different criteria to select the peaks that make up the list. To complete the Trailwrights list each peak must be climbed in a separate hike, touching a road in between. So while you can “count” two peaks climbing North and South Kinsman with the AMC list, you can only “count” one of the two for your Trailwrights list. They both have the same rules about hiking from the road with no mechanical advantage. It’s even detailed enough that if a road to a trailhead is gated you can’t bike to the trailhead and still count the climb. The Trailwrights also require you to perform 72 hours of trailwork. For the US States Highpointing there are no restrictions on how you get there - driving the top is perfectly acceptable.
But none of those lists and games determine if you reached the summit. There are no specific rules for touching the summit rock. From years of doing this most people just touch the highest rock, the USGS marker, or the summit sign, usually with their hand.
In the case of the AMC, a written application has to be filed after the descent. However, as I noted it apparently doesn’t have to be filed by the person who made the climb, so a posthumous application would apparently be possible. However, it does require that the applicant must climb “to and from” the summit on foot, and make it back to a trailhead (not necessarily the one they started from). That would apparently, in this particular case, preclude someone who died on the way down qualifying.
Yes, perhaps I should have tempered my sarcasm if the comment was restricted to the unusual case of the AMC. More generally, major mountain expeditions routinely carry radios or satellite phones and sometimes GPS transponders, and it’s not traditional that a successful descent must be completed in order to claim the summit.
Right. The list of recognized Everest summiteers includes many climbers who never made it back to Base Camp alive.
Nepal and China issue summit certificates for Everest, but this is largely based on the word of the expedition leader. There’s no official up there checking that you put your foot on the exact top. And not everyone who summits gets an official certificate. There was a controversy a few years ago when they weren’t giving certificates to Sherpas on the grounds that they weren’t official members of expedition parties. I believe that this has been resolved and Sherpas now get them.
Speaking of summitting and Everest, I thought this movie scene was interesting: Everest Movie CLIP - Scott Makes the Summit (2015) - Jake Gyllenhaal, Jason Clarke Movie HD - YouTube
The climber merely touches his finger to the highest rocky point. He doesn’t stand on it with his feet. It’s a movie, and may not accurately reflect reality, but does that not “count” in some peoples’ eyes?
He’s standing on the summit. He touches the tangled bundle of prayer flags, see here:
Cairns used to mark the summit aren’t the summit. They’re on top of the summit. Touching the cairn would suffice for every climber I know. The bottom line is it just doesn’t matter very much if you’re within a few feet, unless there’s a known technical obstacle that needs to be surmounted as part of the climb.
The AMC rule mentioned above is to make sure people don’t use a chairlift, tram, road, or train to get down from a 4000’er (all possible). It’s not really about dying on a hike. The list isn’t about summiting, it’s about successfully completing all the hikes on the list, and hikes include making it back to the trailhead.