Colorado peak questions, condition requests and other info.
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bdloftin77 wrote: ↑Sat Dec 04, 2021 1:28 pm
Colorado county highpointers:
Many of the eastern county high points remain in similar locations. Three have changed by a decent amount, however.
Phillips County High Point: Now 2.22 miles south of the old LoJ location, at 40.5128,-102.6651 and 6 feet higher than the previous location
"Bledsoe Windmill": Now 0.22 miles east of the old LoJ location, at 39.0588,-103.1578. It's on a slight rise on the easternmost of the three closed contours, and is 3 feet higher than the previous location.
"Selenite Bluff": Now 0.16 miles southwest of the old LoJ location at 38.5166,-103.2674. It's on the eastern edge of the southwest closed contour, and is 2 feet higher than the previous location.
I visited the Phillips location previously, but will be returning to pick up Bledsoe Windmill and Selenite Bluff.
Elbert Rock's location is slightly south of the previous one (it'll be coming out soon: 39.13043,-104.63800). I didn't quite hit it on the way, so I'll be revisiting that one as well. The new location is within vertical foot of the old, and many people probably visited this on the way to the previous LoJ location.
Shannon Benchmark is more centered in the contour and not actually on the benchmark (40.4981,-104.0519), but many people probably visited this on the way to the previous LoJ spot.
Luckily, looks like I covered my bases well with all of these and shouldn't need to go back (I visited all the county line candidates for Phillips, and all the contours for the others).
However, one I'd be highly interested to see is Hesperus vs Lavender in far southwest Montezuma County. Supposedly Hesperus measures higher, but I never did climb Lavender and would have to go back for it if it's indeed higher...
"If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason."
— Jack Handy
113 Hesperus Mountain 13,232' 10,380' 2,852' 13,238' n/a n/a CO Montezuma La Plata TNM Oct 31 2021 John Kirk
114 Lavender Peak 13,220' 12,820' 400' 13,234' 12,860' 374' CO Montezuma La Plata TNM Oct 31 2021 John Kirk
What about Grand Turk true summit? I did this group yesterday and it felt to me like the middle bump of the group of three was highest. Register is on the far right/east bump.
Dobsons wrote: ↑Sat Dec 04, 2021 9:47 pm
Me and a few buddies did QRST this past summer. I do not recall any cairns or certainly nothing of significance. I attached a few shots, hopefully that helps. There is a spot in the direction of the west partner east partner saddle that seemed like it could be higher but it definitely wasn't and the shot with both my friends on the summit is looking back at the high point.
Thank you! Since those look like natural rocks, I won't exclude them. We've been rounding to the nearest foot for summits and saddles. This one hits 12,999.761 feet. That's three inches shy of being a 13er. Since lidar might have missed the very highest point anyways, I feel okay with calling this Colorado's new lowest 13er! (at least until the new elevation datum rolls around and possibly do a mass-update on peak elevations).
13erRetriever wrote: ↑Sun Dec 05, 2021 10:52 am
What about Grand Turk true summit? I did this group yesterday and it felt to me like the middle bump of the group of three was highest. Register is on the far right/east bump.
Looks like it’s in the same general location, on the middle bump. I sent this to John.
LetsGoMets wrote: ↑Sun Dec 05, 2021 8:04 am
Any ability to check Bi-centennial 13,712? I was up there yesterday and my GPS measurements where extremely close to should not be ranked.
I found it to be ranked at 322’. Sent this to John.
Jon Frohlich wrote: ↑Fri Dec 03, 2021 9:39 am
Anyone checked Hagar and The Citadel? Both aren't ranked by much and I'm curious which summit of The Citadel is actually higher.
I attempted to analyze those, but lidar for the summit of one and the saddle of the other isn't yet available for download.
LetsGoMets wrote: ↑Sun Dec 05, 2021 8:04 am
Any ability to check Bi-centennial 13,712? I was up there yesterday and my GPS measurements where extremely close to should not be ranked.
I found it to be ranked at 322’. Sent this to John.
Chicago Transplant wrote: ↑Fri Dec 03, 2021 11:01 am
What I found interesting and seems to not caught anyone's attention in this thread yet is that Eolus is higher than Windom under the LiDAR analysis. This is different than field surveys which noted the following on LOJ's Windom page:
Windom Peak has been determined higher than Eolus via survey-grade GPS, as well as the fact that summit block is 5' higher than benchmark.
So now with LiDAR, Eolus is coming in 5' higher than Windom, making Eolus the LaPlata county highpoint again. Did LiDAR miss Windom's summit block?
Also Whitney in the HCW, the technical summit block has been leveled higher by numerous parties, and is noted as such on LOJ:
Eastern end of contour has a 8' block that levels much higher than the spot elevation 13271. Elevation is interpolation of 13271 spot elevation and next higher contour (13280). 1949 Quadrangle accurately depicts east end of contour as the highpoint.
Now LiDAR is saying the western non-technical summit is actually the higher one. Did LiDAR miss the boulder on the east?
I fat-fingered some pasting for Eolus and Windom, replacing a new elevation value with Windom's old one from the original table. Whitney I found the summit block to the east to be higher but updated my upload sheet after replacing the values in the analysis template with results from a different tile for the west summit which was found to be lower. Ben did the extra legwork on the saddles for these and rechecked the summits; should all be reflected on the LiDAR analysis page properly now.
Chicago Transplant wrote: ↑Fri Dec 03, 2021 11:01 am
What I found interesting and seems to not caught anyone's attention in this thread yet is that Eolus is higher than Windom under the LiDAR analysis. This is different than field surveys which noted the following on LOJ's Windom page:
Windom Peak has been determined higher than Eolus via survey-grade GPS, as well as the fact that summit block is 5' higher than benchmark.
So now with LiDAR, Eolus is coming in 5' higher than Windom, making Eolus the LaPlata county highpoint again. Did LiDAR miss Windom's summit block?
Also Whitney in the HCW, the technical summit block has been leveled higher by numerous parties, and is noted as such on LOJ:
Eastern end of contour has a 8' block that levels much higher than the spot elevation 13271. Elevation is interpolation of 13271 spot elevation and next higher contour (13280). 1949 Quadrangle accurately depicts east end of contour as the highpoint.
Now LiDAR is saying the western non-technical summit is actually the higher one. Did LiDAR miss the boulder on the east?
I fat-fingered some pasting for Eolus and Windom, replacing a new elevation value with Windom's old one from the original table. Whitney I found the summit block to the east to be higher but updated my upload sheet after replacing the values in the analysis template with results from a different tile for the west summit which was found to be lower. Ben did the extra legwork on the saddles for these and rechecked the summits; should all be reflected on the LiDAR analysis page properly now.
Thanks John! Keep up the good work, Ben too.
I am super excited to see a few 12ers promoted, 12977 and Peak 8 - welcome to the 13ers. I of course am also very happy Grand Traverse maintained its ranked status.
Still sad to see so many 13ers dropping off the ranked list, but they seem to be replaced in higher numbers so far so the list is growing!
"We want the unpopular challenge. We want to test our intellect!" - Snapcase
"You are not what you own" - Fugazi
"Life's a mountain not a beach" - Fortune Cookie I got at lunch the other day
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Thanks John! Keep up the good work, Ben too.
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Thank you! Though many might believe otherwise, John's not a robot (and I'm not either). Fortunately with so many eyes, we're able to catch things like this. John caught a couple fat finger errors in my latest submission - I'm re-checking over everything else I submitted in the last bunch to make sure it all matches what I found in the lidar.
Lavender also moved slightly from the east contour to the west one, and is a mere foot lower than Hesperus (but still lower!).