Vertical relief of USA mountains.

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Jbrow327
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Vertical relief of USA mountains.

Post by Jbrow327 »

Was watching a video of someone driving from Bishop, California northbound. They passed an elevation sign that said 5000 feet. They pointed out white mountain peak at 14,252 feet. Meaning there's 9,252 feet of vertical prominence. Can anywhere else in the USA outside Alaska even come close to that vertical prominence?

I've never seen the white mountains in real life but they look absolutely MASSIVE.
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Re: Vertical relief of USA mountains.

Post by headsizeburrito »

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U ... ted_States

We got #14 (Elbert) right here in Colorado!
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Re: Vertical relief of USA mountains.

Post by dr_j »

Rainier, Shasta, Adams, Hood
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Re: Vertical relief of USA mountains.

Post by Jbrow327 »

Wow that's huge!
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Re: Vertical relief of USA mountains.

Post by letitbeirie »

San Gorgonio Mountain (east of L.A.) is only 11,500 or so but it looks massive from Palm Springs (elev. 500).
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Re: Vertical relief of USA mountains.

Post by Eli Watson »

headsizeburrito wrote: Thu Apr 29, 2021 8:25 pm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U ... ted_States

We got #14 (Elbert) right here in Colorado!
This is a bit misleading because of how prominence is calculated. Topographic prominence is calculated as the difference in elevation between a summit and the highest saddle between it and the nearest summit equal to or higher than it - in this case Mt Whitney, CA. This is why Everest technically has a prominence equal to its elevation above sea level by this method, even though base camp starts at 10,000'. So in the case of Elbert, its prominence is defined as the difference between 14,433' and the highest lowpoint between it and Mt Whitney which is roughly 5400' for a prominence of 9000'. But for practical intents and purposes we all know no one can see 9000' of Elbert anywhere: not on the trail, not from Twin Lakes, not from town in Leadville or BV.

Rainier or the Olympic Mountains from sea level on the ferry across the Puget Sound are pretty amazing. Bonus points if it's at sunset. The Tetons are incredible. The California mountains offer some pretty substantial relief. The west coast in general has a sharper rise for their mountains, whereas the Rockies more so resemble mounds of earth stacked on top of itself. The US Lower 48 in general lacks those sheer walls of rock relief for our tallest mountains that is more common in South America, Europe, or Asia.
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Re: Vertical relief of USA mountains.

Post by ezabielski »

If we're using the intuitive definition of vertical relief, as in, how many vertical feet can you see when you're near the base of a mountain looking up, then off the top of my head:

Rainier
Shasta
Telescope
San Jacinto

All have over 10k feet of vert to look at.

Try climbing Telescope in a day round trip from Badwater. You'll appreciate the relief! I did it in November and it was a fun big big day.
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Re: Vertical relief of USA mountains.

Post by jmanner »

Pretty sure Pikes, Longs and Evan’s have 9,000’ of relief from Denver. Longs has near 10,000’ from Ft Collins.
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Re: Vertical relief of USA mountains.

Post by ltlFish99 »

I would think Rainier is one of the top ones.
After returning from the summit, we stopped for pizza at a place that was about 2,800 feet in elevation and you could see the summit from thier front porch.
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Re: Vertical relief of USA mountains.

Post by aholle88 »

Thanks Eli Watson for the explanation! The whole prominence thing has always been a bit confusing as it would seem Pikes is #1 in CO in terms of vertical relief from nearest low point/town. And just sheer “prominence” as it sticks out on its own like no other peak in the state really, you can see it well from the Sangres, Sawatch, ten mile, mosquito, etc. Longs from Boulder, Evan’s from Denver as well as John pointed out, but those still aren’t quite anything like Pikes. Seems as though the definition of prominence should be changed as it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense really. Pikes and Longs are clearly the top 2 in how they stand alone compared to their immediate surroundings.
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Re: Vertical relief of USA mountains.

Post by supranihilest »

aholle88 wrote: Fri Apr 30, 2021 8:52 pm Thanks Eli Watson for the explanation! The whole prominence thing has always been a bit confusing as it would seem Pikes is #1 in CO in terms of vertical relief from nearest low point/town. And just sheer “prominence” as it sticks out on its own like no other peak in the state really, you can see it well from the Sangres, Sawatch, ten mile, mosquito, etc. Longs from Boulder, Evan’s from Denver as well as John pointed out, but those still aren’t quite anything like Pikes. Seems as though the definition of prominence should be changed as it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense really. Pikes and Longs are clearly the top 2 in how they stand alone compared to their immediate surroundings.
Prominence makes perfect sense though. The problem with what you're describing comes in when trying to objectively define what "immediate surroundings" would include. Assuming immediate uses a circle around a peak, how far before it's no longer immediate? How was the radius of that circle chosen? I'm pretty sure that we can agree that "it looks big" is a terrible measure because the view of a peak is different from an infinite number of different locations. Longs looks big from US 36 and isn't visible from Meeker's south slopes, therefore it has prominence of 2,940 feet and also zero, while also simultaneously existing and not existing. Schrödinger's peak. :wink: At least with the way prominence is currently calculated, using a peak's next highest neighbor, that's clearly an objective measure. It's either higher or it's not, and we know what is or is not the lowest connecting saddle with the higher peak.

You also mention how Pikes and Longs stand alone, which is another measure known as isolation, which is simply the distance to the next highest peak in a straight line. So something like Longs, yeah, it's big and it stands alone, but again how do you objectively measure that? It doesn't "stand as alone" in a visual sense as say Blanca, yet Blanca is more isolated because its next highest neighbor is farther than Longs' next highest neighbor. But attempting to objectively define what looks isolated is impossible.

Some links to peruse:
LoJ glossary
Colorado's 100 most prominent peaks (gives an idea of how weird things can get, like for example the 8th most prominent peak in Colorado not even being a 10er)
Colorado's 100 most isolated peaks
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