John said, "Generally, I'd say benchmarks are fixed points whereas summit names can be applied to the highest point if nearby and no other name nearby exists. "Hawk Peak" exists on a sky terrain map with an ISBN." He also said, "For unranked peaks, the name should probably stay where the mapmakers intended."Boggy B wrote: ↑Wed Sep 20, 2023 12:15 pm TL;DR
How do we classify named summits where the highpoint and the named point are in different places?
Take ranked Middle Peak - the coordinates given on the BGN page match the point labeled "13261" (USGS) at the northwest end of the ridge, but the 14ers/LoJ pin is at the ranked highpoint further along the ridge towards the Dolores saddle.
Then we have unranked Thunder Mountain - the pin is at the same location as the officially named point. However, slightly upridge to the west there is a higher point--which if I recall though still unranked turned out to be fairly prominent--before the Greylock saddle is reached.
With unranked King Solomon, the map label appears to designate the entire ridge/massif, the pin is at the southernmost prominence, but the BGN page indicates the northernmost (despite that the southern one was known to be higher then).
I believe The Sawtooth is an unranked/named example where 14ers, LoJ, and the BGN disagree.
This seems like an inconsistency. Do we usually try to use the map labeled (BGN/USGS?) point if it's unranked and otherwise the ranked point?
Are there any examples of named+ranked peaks that contradict this scheme?
If the point west of Thunder had turned out to be ranked, would we have moved that summit?
I'm not arguing for more peaks (since the only alternative that comes to mind where the named and ranked points differ would be to keep the named point as an unranked summit and add a UN at the ranked point, which would yield a bunch of extra named points with almost no prominence). Just curious if there's an actual methodology in these cases.
Given all that, it seems like if there is a ranked point somewhat near a named point, the name could possibly apply, depending on how close it is. It would be a lot of extra points to add an unranked exactly where the name is, and then a ranked point at the actual HP.
Ranked Middle Peak is ranked, so the LoJ point is at the HP, and gets the name from nearby Middle Peak.
For unranked, Thunder Mountain, Sheep Mountain, and Lone Eagle Peak, John chose to keep the LoJ point closest to the name on the caltopo map. (Though Ryan did show an old map where the name was more ambiguous).
For unranked King Solomon, since the name on the map vaguely indicates the entire ridge, the actual HP makes since to pinpoint (even though BGN has the northern spot).
And yes, for Hawk Peak, LoJ depicts the HP as shown in the guidebook instead of the BM location.
Hopefully that makes some sense. He tries to put a big emphasis on where the USGS map shows the name (which the BGN coordinates often correspond to), especially if the peak is unranked. Sometimes the placement is ambiguous/subjective as to where exactly it refers to. If there's a ranked summit and if there's no name, it'll be unnamed; if there's a nearby name, sometimes LoJ takes that name and applies it to the ranked summit if it seems reasonable to do so.
