http://www.listsofjohn.com/PeakStats/Climbers.php?Id=3082
I noticed that the highest contour for Cottonwood BM is 10,000 feet on both the new "MyTopo" version of the topo map and the old "USGS" Terraserver version (40ft contours on this quad). However, the spot elevation is given as 10,119. I checked the NGS site for the benchmark datasheet (http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/ds_radius.prl) and it also gives 10,119 as the old elevation (10,124 with the new geoid), so one would be inclined to think that this elevation is correct and there are 2 missing contours. On the other hand, the "Terrain" view from Google, which presumably uses DEM data, indicates that the summit area is quite flat within the 10,000 contour. Not a big deal, but if the "Terrain" and contours are correct, a 100ft reduction in altitude would make this peak an "error range" ranked peak instead of a guaranteed ranked peak. Does anybody who has been there have any comments/data on the observed altitude or flatness?
(There's a spot elevation on an unranked peak near where I live in AZ that appears to be exactly 100ft in error, but I would be rather surprised for this to happen at a benchmark.)