I think one dif. between hiking and climbing is the physical effort that has to be made to go"up", and not fall down.In the Northeast[ yeah ,yeah, say what you want. Here of alot of dead westerners in our "hills" that underestemated them] , Mt.Washington in the "green " seasons is definetly a hike ,unless you are on a tech climb, or the HuntingtonsRavine Headwall trail. Come october/November, it is a full on climb, technical terain or not. All right ,now let's here the ragging on the easterner.