If there are 58 14ers...

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Mtnman200
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If there are 58 14ers...

Post by Mtnman200 »

Many climbers here have suggested that to complete the 14ers, one must climb the named but non-separate mountains (due to not meeting the 300' criteria), which means 53 separate + 5 non-separate mountains = 58 total summits.

If there are 58 14ers, then how many peaks does one have to climb to complete the 100 highest peaks in Colorado (the "Centennials")? When my dad and I climbed the Centennials, we decided to climb all non-ranked peaks that were at least as tall as peak #100 (Dallas Peak), not because we thought we had to but because we thought it would be fun. This meant that we climbed the Centennials, plus Mt. Cameron, El Diente, Conundrum Peak, North Eolus, North Maroon Peak, Gemini Peak, Frasco Benchmark, Traver Peak, Mt. Spalding, and Iowa Peak, for a total of 110 peaks. The term "soft-ranked" was not in use at the time, but we did go over the soft-ranked summit of North Massive on our way to Mt. Massive. There's also the soft-ranked Drift Peak (13,900'), which didn't show up on any lists way back then but does now.

Using the same criteria as those who advocate for 58 14ers, does that mean that one must climb 112 peaks to complete the Centennials? How about the Bicentennials, etc.?

By the way, I would never feel I'd completed the 14ers without climbing El Diente and North Maroon, but at the same time I never felt that I needed to climb the other non-separate peaks to complete the Centennials. Just wondering what everyone else thinks.
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Re: If there are 58 14ers...

Post by Jon Frohlich »

If you just do it strictly by doing all the ranked peaks then you have to climb 53 14ers plus the next 47 peaks. If you do it the way you stated you wind up with 112. If you do it by saying you're going to do everything above 13,800 ranked and unranked you wind up with 118.

To me at least as long as you do 53+47 then you've finished the centennials (and by extension 53+47+100 completes the bicentennials). Anything more than that is up to the feelings of the person doing the list.
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Re: If there are 58 14ers...

Post by Papillon »

I think most people setting out to climb the bicentennials will actually climb 202 peaks because #s 198,199,200,201 and 202 all have the same elevation of 13,580 feet.
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Re: If there are 58 14ers...

Post by CarpeDM »

Papillon wrote:I think most people setting out to climb the bicentennials will actually climb 202 peaks because #s 198,199,200,201 and 202 all have the same elevation of 13,580 feet.
Good point! Thanks for pointing that out. As much as time as I spend on this topic, I should've picked up on that.
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Re: If there are 58 14ers...

Post by TravelingMatt »

First off, there aren't 58 14ers. Anyway...

Gerry Roach invented the term "centennials", so he gets to define it. In his 13ers book he writes: "We have coined the term centennial thirteeners to refer to the thirteeners between 13,800 and 13,999 feet. Climbing the 59 centennial thirteeners [is commensurate to] the goal of climbing Colorado's 55 fourteeners." I presume he ignores North Eolus, Cameron and Condumdumb, but two things are clear: "Centennials" do not include 14ers, and Roach's list of 14ers plus centennials totals 114 peaks.

Given that Roach defines the term to go down to 13,800, and that there are 53 ranked peaks in this range (Grizzly A is #54; Organ is #106), Roach counts six unranked peaks. Based on what he provides routes for in the book, these seem to comprise Gemini, Drift, Frasco, Traver, Spalding and Iowa. Kitty Cat Carson, Sunlight Spire and several other bumps seem not to count.

I would use "Hundred Highest" to describe the list of 100 ranked peaks whose lowest summit is Dallas. You often see notations such as "83/100" in summit registers, and most intuitively this is what is meant. Most people, including Roach, muddy the issue after that, using "bicentennials" to mean "ranked peaks betweed 101-200" and so on.
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Re: If there are 58 14ers...

Post by Teresa Gergen »

You can, of course, create any version of the lists that you like.

The earliest versions of the 14er list that the Colorado Mountain Club created happened before the "300 ft rule" came into play, and also before elevations were more firmly established, and the list varied over time. El Diente and North Maroon are still on the "traditional list" of 14ers for that reason. The California and Washington 14ers lists have the same situation, wtih differing number of peaks on "traditional" vs. "ranked" lists.

The Hundred lists are fundamentally different. A list of peaks over 14000 ft can include anything that has an elevation of at least 14000 ft, depending on what rules you use. But a list of the highest 100 peaks can only include 100 peaks, a rule needs to be adopted to define what counts as a peak, and the accepted rule is the 300 foot rule (there is no reason you shouldn't climb the unranked peaks at these elevations too, but they are not on the list). Thus you DO need to climb Challenger to complete the Highest 100 list. The one exception to this is, as Papillon points out, when several peaks have the same elevation at the boundary cut-off. You DO have to climb 202 peaks to claim a completion of the Highest 200 peaks, since there is no way to distinguish which of the peaks with an elevation of 13580 should be left off. However, you only need to climb the next 98 highest ranked peaks to finish the Highest 300. This happens again with the Highest 400 (you need to climb 403 peaks), the Highest 500 (503), 900 (901), 1000 (1001), 1400 (1405), 1600 (1601), 1700 (1701), 1900 (1902), 2000 (2001), and so forth (see listsofjohn.com).

People also have historically climbed any ranked peak with an elevation within about 7-10 ft below the cutoff of the list they are working on, before claiming a completion of that list, because of the historical uncertainties that existed in determining the elevations of peaks. So, the earlier people climbing the Highest 100 peaks often climbed everything over 13800 to be sure their claim would stand. My understanding is that Gerry's book went down to 13800 for that reason.
Last edited by Teresa Gergen on Mon Mar 04, 2013 6:24 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: If there are 58 14ers...

Post by wildlobo71 »

TravelingMatt wrote:First off, there aren't 58 14ers. Anyway...

Gerry Roach invented the term "centennials", so he gets to define it. In his 13ers book he writes: "We have coined the term centennial thirteeners to refer to the thirteeners between 13,800 and 13,999 feet. Climbing the 59 centennial thirteeners [is commensurate to] the goal of climbing Colorado's 55 fourteeners." I presume he ignores North Eolus, Cameron and Condumdumb, but two things are clear: "Centennials" do not include 14ers, and Roach's list of 14ers plus centennials totals 114 peaks.

Given that Roach defines the term to go down to 13,800, and that there are 53 ranked peaks in this range (Grizzly A is #54; Organ is #106), Roach counts six unranked peaks. Based on what he provides routes for in the book, these seem to comprise Gemini, Drift, Frasco, Traver, Spalding and Iowa. Kitty Cat Carson, Sunlight Spire and several other bumps seem not to count.

I would use "Hundred Highest" to describe the list of 100 ranked peaks whose lowest summit is Dallas. You often see notations such as "83/100" in summit registers, and most intuitively this is what is meant. Most people, including Roach, muddy the issue after that, using "bicentennials" to mean "ranked peaks betweed 101-200" and so on.
First, Gerry Roach coined the term "Centennial Thirteeners" - did not invent the term "Centennials"... for people climbing the Centennials, that's everything equal to and taller than Dallas Peak (officially). Everything above 13,800' is 106 peaks (officially), so if this is the definition of "Centennial Thirteeners".

Is Bicentennial so muddy? I think the concept is very clear - the tallest 200 peaks on the list... Technically speaking, Pikes Peak is a 14er, a Centennial, a Bicentennial, etc... if it appears on the list (although you'd never call it the wonderful Bicentennial Peak, Pikes Peak.) Mount Silverheels is technically a Centennial, a Bicentennial, etc... While Mount Sheridan is simply a Bicentennial. Thinking of it in that sense, can you complete the Bicentennials simply by climbing all peaks from Niagara Peak (#101) to Clark Peak A and the remaining unnamed 13,580's (all share #200)? No, only when you complete the first 100 do you get to conclude the Bicentennials.
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Re: If there are 58 14ers...

Post by TravelingMatt »

wildlobo71 wrote:First, Gerry Roach coined the term "Centennial Thirteeners" - did not invent the term "Centennials"... for people climbing the Centennials, that's everything equal to and taller than Dallas Peak (officially). Everything above 13,800' is 106 peaks (officially), so if this is the definition of "Centennial Thirteeners".
OK, so you're defining "centennial thirteener" and "centennial" differently. Maybe other people do this too, but I've never heard of it.
Is Bicentennial so muddy?
The concept may be clearly definable but the way people use the term in real life is not. "Centennial" doesn't mean 100 but people tend to use "Bicentennial" to mean 200.
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Re: If there are 58 14ers...

Post by wildlobo71 »

TravelingMatt wrote:
wildlobo71 wrote:First, Gerry Roach coined the term "Centennial Thirteeners" - did not invent the term "Centennials"... for people climbing the Centennials, that's everything equal to and taller than Dallas Peak (officially). Everything above 13,800' is 106 peaks (officially), so if this is the definition of "Centennial Thirteeners".
OK, so you're defining "centennial thirteener" and "centennial" differently. Maybe other people do this too, but I've never heard of it.
Is Bicentennial so muddy?
The concept may be clearly definable but the way people use the term in real life is not. "Centennial" doesn't mean 100 but people tend to use "Bicentennial" to mean 200.
I'm just defining Centennial and Bicentennial the way the Latin root-word defines them (centum meaning 100th even though in true form, Centennial means 100th Anniversary.) It still means 100 of something. Bicentennial means 200th Anniversary. so on so forth. It doesn't mean 106 of anything, nor does it mean everything lesser than 54 and greater than 100/106.
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Re: If there are 58 14ers...

Post by TravelingMatt »

Since Roach never meant the centennials to form a list that contains exactly 100 peaks, it seems the term alludes to Colorado's nickname as the Centennial State.
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Re: If there are 58 14ers...

Post by wildlobo71 »

TravelingMatt wrote:Since Roach never meant the centennials to form a list that contains exactly 100 peaks, it seems the term alludes to Colorado's nickname as the Centennial State.
Became a state on August 1st, 1876 - the Centennial year of the Republic.

Okay, killed that sub-topic. Thanks Matt! Frankly I don't care if Roach meant Centennial to be 100 or 106, I don't think I'll split hairs that far along in my own journey to eliminate the remaining 6 summits if I haven't yet done them.
Last edited by wildlobo71 on Mon Mar 04, 2013 6:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: If there are 58 14ers...

Post by smoove »

TravelingMatt wrote:Since Roach never meant the centennials to form a list that contains exactly 100 peaks, it seems the term alludes to Colorado's nickname as the Centennial State.
Huh? From the preface of his Thirteeners book:

"After completing the fourteeners, many people choose to pursue the goal of climbing Colorado's 100 highest peaks. Counting schemes vary, but the fourteeners plus the thirteeners over 13,800 comprise Colorado's 100 highest peaks. We have coined the term centennial thirteeners to refer to thirteeners between 13,800 and 13,999 feet." (bold emphasis mine)

It seems clear to me that by "centennial," Roach does indeed mean 100. I'm sure he picked 13,800' as the baseline of the 13ers highlighted in his book because it's a nice round number--so the number of 14ers plus the number of 13ers from 13,800' to 13,999' slightly exceeds 100.
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