Miscellaneous summits

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Miscellaneous summits

Postby jdorje » Tue Jul 22, 2014 1:27 pm

Pretty odd to run into two dual-summits (after Eureka, which I posted a couple weeks ago) in such quick succession.

White Mountain, near Antero:

http://listsofjohn.com/peak/200
http://listsofjohn.com/qmap?Q=11206

Mount White is a dual-summit peak. The eastern summit is covered with white rock, possibly the same chalky rock as is common in the area; there is a cairn but it's well below the big boulders right on the summit. The western summit, in stark contrast, is covered with black/reddish rocks; a large cairn raises the "elevation" of this summit a couple of feet. The image on the peak page shows these summits pretty clearly.

Image

They are visible on the topo map as well, as a contour line conveniently intersects the saddle. That would give 40 feet of interpolated prominence to the lower peak. It takes well under 5 minutes to walk between the two points, so perhaps it doesn't matter which is higher. The USGS has neither one listed as "Mount White", but rather pinpoints the more visible false summit (13371) off to the east (this is from the USGS points list; in the quad map the whole mountain is labeled). So perhaps this is just unranked peak 13667.

LoJ has the western summit labeled as highest. It's really hard to tell, but I suspect the eastern is higher.

1) The below pictures are not particularly clear, due to very different backgrounds. The "horizon" as a reference point is not visible to the west.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/conte ... LTFBuP3e3d
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/conte ... Q009RMUNC0

2) My barometer showed 0.28 mbar lower on the eastern peak than the eastern (622.88 versus 623.16). This corresponds to about an 11 foot difference, but is unreliable since ambient pressure could have changed.

3) My phone claimed looking at the western summit was 2 degrees down. From the western summit looking at the eastern it claimed 1 degree up. These numbers are even less reliable.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/conte ... qAfJtDTJv7

4) 13ers.com lists the eastern as the true summit. Summitpost does also. I have no idea how they arrived their conclusion. The eastern summit does *look* higher since it has the Arkansas valley in the background, instead of a bunch of 13000-foot ridges.

5) I didn't find a summit register on either point, though I didn't look hard.
Last edited by jdorje on Thu Sep 11, 2014 11:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Mount White (Antero/Sawatch) summit

Postby John Kirk » Tue Jul 22, 2014 5:10 pm

This question seems to come up about once a year. I had it as the NE summit at one point. Here's an email that describes why the West summit is listed as the HP:
> Subject: Re: Mount White (13,667')???
> From: gerryroachxxxxxx
> Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2012 10:22:34 -0700
> CC: jkirk_14xxxxxx
> To: QCIENGRxxxxxx
> Hello Gary,
>
> I briefly describe Mount White as an Extra Credit to Antero on Page 161 of the 3rd Edition of my Fourteeners Guide.
> I do proclaim that the Southwest summit is the highest of the two summits.
> When I was there, I did both summits, hand-leveled both ways, and determined that the SW was the highest.
>
> I just noticed on Lists of John that the pushpin is on the NE summit.
> I believe that it should be on the SW summit for two reasons.
> One, per my hand-leveling, the SW summit is higher.
> Two, the given elevation of 13,667 for the SW summit is more than 13,660, which is the extrapolated elevation of the NE summit.
> With nothing to go on but the map, 13,667 trumps 13,660.
> I've copied John for this.
>
> When in doubt, bag all summits!
>
> Gerry
>
> On Nov 5, 2012, at 12:01 PM, QCIENGRxxxxxx wrote:
>
> > Gerry and Jennifer,
> >
> > There are two summits on Mount White that are approximately 500 feet apart.
> > The southwest summit is annotated on the Mount Antero quad with an
> > elevation of 13,667 feet, which is the accepted elevation for the peak. Is this
> > the higher of the two summits, or is the northeast summit possibly higher?
> >
> > Garratt and Martin in their Colorado's High Thirteeners book stated,
> > "Though very close in height, the southwest summit appears to be higher than the
> > northeast summit." Also, John Kirk (LoJ) has stated in a recent e-mail,
> > "Seems to me the south one was higher." However, the Mount White page on
> > Summitpost says, "Mount White has two summits that appear equal in height as you
> > approach from the east. The summits are about 300 feet apart. One is white
> > and the other is gray. When I was there, there were cairns on both summits.
> > The east (white) summit is slightly higher, and the unofficial summit register
> > resides there."
> >
> > Because cairns have been built on both summits, there is at least some
> > confusion as to which summit is higher. Wondering if you might have
> > hand-leveled from both summits (or used some other method) to determine which one is
> > actually higher and by how much? If the northeast summit is actually higher,
> > should the published elevation for Mount White be revised accordingly?
> >
> > Thanks, Gary
>
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Re: Mount White (Antero/Sawatch) summit

Postby jdorje » Wed Jul 23, 2014 12:09 pm

Thanks for the explanation. With the note added to the peak hopefully this won't get asked anymore!
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Re: Miscellaneous summits

Postby jdorje » Thu Sep 11, 2014 11:37 pm

Another miscellaneous summit.

I was hiking in the La Garita area and noticed point 12591'.

http://caltopo.com/map.html#ll=37.97231 ... 9&z=16&b=t

The saddle appears to be interpolated at 12300, making it soft-ranked with 291 +- 20 feet of prominence. Based on the gentle top of that saddle, there's a decent chance it has 300 feet of prominence.

I don't think I got a picture.
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Re: Miscellaneous summits

Postby John Kirk » Fri Sep 12, 2014 12:47 pm

I've noticed it too (climbed it and logged it five years ago):
http://www.listsofjohn.com/peak/88397
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Re: Miscellaneous summits

Postby jdorje » Fri Sep 12, 2014 1:23 pm

Okay, so this was me not remembering to change the prominence threshold on the quad map. Whoops.
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