Obviously by anyone's definition, you need to reach the top to successfully climb a mountain, but after hiking to the top of Guadalupe Peak, where the peak is at 8,751 ft, but with a prominence of only 3,029 ft, it seems like most of the 'work' was done by just getting into the parking lot.
Then through further reading about the 50-state high point challenge, I read that Britton Hill in Florida is only 345 ft, with the parking lot just 66 ft from the 'summit'. Does that mean that accomplishing the feat of reaching the peak of all 50 summits in a record time could drastically be reduced by merely moving the starting point (parking lot) closer to the summit? What is the actual definition of 'climbing' a mountain?