Nice effort Dave, I like your approach. I do question the result for Peak 15, though. At the saddle, did you traverse out a hundred feet or so and then head up, or did you follow the rap route? Traversing out from the saddle seems to lead to pretty easy climbing. (Or at least I found the climbing on Peak 15 to be easy to follow. ) I also climbed it in late June, and this may have made for an easy snow climb that covered up some class 4 junk in the gully. I considered Peak 15 to be the 3rd hardedst behind Jagged (#2) and Lizard Head (#1). I'd probably also bump up Coxcomb into the intermediate area, as well.dhgold wrote: Part of my motivation to compile these rankings was my recent ascent of Peak Fifteen and subsequent feeling that its historical rating in the 5.2 range substantially belied its overall difficulty and seriousness. In some respects it felt to me like a bigger undertaking than Turret Ridge, the near consensus choice as hardest ranked summit above timberline in Colorado. So I was pleased to see that P15 came out at the top of my rankings, tied with Turret.
If I were to revise your system, I'd probably have a little greater emphasis on the technical climbing (with a multiplier like x2) and a little less on the seriousness, which involves remoteness. The seriousness tends to bump Peak 15 and Jagged up and make them appear harder than Lizard Head, but I'm sure there are many people out there who would be more than happy to have 20 mile backpack to Lizard Head if it meant "magically" reducing Lizard Head from a 5.8/5.9 climb to one around 5.4. Or I've often thought about what value Lizard Head would have on an imiginary peak bagger exchange market -- e.g., how many class 2 peaks would you need to trade in for a Lizard Head, how many class 3 peaks is worth a Lizard Head, etc.
Again, nice post!