Colorado Quadrangle Stats

[RyanSchilling]

The concept of Island Parent is new to me - I'll have to let that one roll around my brain a little.

Let me know if you figure it out! Every time I ponder it, I can't grasp the difference between it and prominence parents (it doesn't help that he uses an example where IP=PP). Can you think of a Colorado example where IP does not equal PP?

[Layne Bracy]

OK, after sleeping on it, here's an example:

Peak-Prominence-Key Saddle

Crestolita 13270 - 490 - 12780
Broken Hand Peak 13573 - 673 - 12900
Crestone Needle 14197 - 457 - 13740
Crestone Peak 14294 - 4554 - 9740

BH, CN, and CP are all in the Line Parent chain for Crestolita.

BH and CP are both in the Prominence Parent chain(having greater prominence than the previous peaks), but not CN.

Crestone Peak is the Island Parent for Crestolita, because it is the first in the chain whose saddle is not higher than Crestolita's saddle.

Using the lowering flood water scenario, when the waters are at the 12781 level, Crestolita is highest on its island. When the water level drops to 12779, Crestone Peak is now highest on the island containing Crestolita.

[RyanSchilling]

I think I see. So does that mean that the island parent will be the most prominent peak nearby?

[Layne Bracy]

So does that mean that the island parent will be the most prominent peak nearby?

It wouldn't have to be, but usually would be.

An improbable counter-example:

Imagine a spire-like peak close to Crestolita, with a base at 8000' rising 5000' extremely sharply from all sides to an elevation of 13000'. If none of the surrounding peaks connect to this spire above 8000', then the spire will have 5000' prominence while Crestone Peak remains the Island Parent for Crestolita.

In this scenario, Crestone Peak is not the Island Parent for the spire, because its saddle is above 8000'. Instead, maybe Elbert would be the Island parent for the Spire.

[RyanSchilling]

Thanks Layne, I think I get it now!

Any opinions on what Mount Oso's line parent would be? At first I was thinking it was Rio Grande Pyramid, but it appears you can take a higher path to reach East Trinity.

[Layne Bracy]

Ryan - if you are already done with La Plata that is amazing! It took me 8 days to do Jefferson, and 20 hours would be a conservative estimate for my time, maybe closer to 30. I am using topozone - do you have something more user-friendly? If you can knock off a county every couple days you could have the entire country done singlehandedly in 10 years, perhaps! Anyway....

Yes, I would go with East Trinity as Mt Oso's line parent. RGP cannot be considered, because to get to RGP from Oso you have to drop to 11940, which is below the key saddle for Oso! i.e. RGP is not even on Oso's Island.

In tracing the ridgelines from key saddle to the line parent, it may be necessary, as in this case, to gain and then lose some elevation along the way. When there are two options or more at any point along the way, choose the one which allows you to stay highest from that point on.

At least, that's how I see it.

[John Kirk]

It seems I should change the terminolgogy on the lists to 'line parent' rather than 'prominence parent'. Does this make more sense? Maybe there's a better term than 'line' as well. My take on parent is the closest higher peak the child belongs to in a 'least drop' relation, - as in a ridge/rangelike sense. From the key saddle, the parent is indeed determined by following a 'line' to the closest higher peak. I had some discussions a while back with Aaron Maizlish and Andy Martin, and this was their interpretation of parents as well. I just termed it prominence parent, since it is the first peak that terminates/determines the prominence for the child peak.

[Layne Bracy]

The term 'line parent' doesn't really capture or assist the meaning it's being used for. People unfamiliar with the definition would likely think it refers to a straight line, or the nearest higher neighbor by crow flies distance.

Maybe 'ridge parent' is better?

BTW, I like the ultra maps. Ryan's prior link on peaklist gives an interesting discussion of how the boundaries are determined - by following the 'slope' lines that fall off from the key saddles.

Is an auto-generated map in the future for every list?

State hp's would be fairly simple. Anybody want to figure out a P2000 cell map for Colorado?

[John Kirk]

State HP's is next, actually. I picked the dimensions/ base map Thursday. A CO cell map would be interesting.

[RyanSchilling]

Layne, I might have spent about six hours on it, and probably a couple more hours cleaning up the 13ers and 12ers for the county. TOPO is much more user-friendly than TZ.com. To be honest, if TopoZone were my only option, I wouldn't work on this project. The size of the map that you can see at any given time would drive me nuts. I just zip around, slapping X's on peaks that I know aren't ranked. John instilled in me how useful it is to waypoint the ranked peaks (and their saddles, too) because you can dump the coordinate information to spreadsheet so easily. Helps speed things up a ton. I do use TopoZone from time to time to zoom in really close to contours that look like a mess in TOPO.

One reason I like the term 'line parent' is because the line parent shows the peak's lineage.

BTW, John, why the new predilection for UTM over decimal degrees? Is there an advantage to UTM? Off to the Laurel Highlands... a poor substitute for Colorado's mountains.

[John Kirk]

When I was using Topozone for NM before I had the NM TOPO! series, I was copying and pasting coordinates, which by default are UTM. An ancillary effect of this - UTM happens to be more accurate since the earth is not a true sphere:
http://www.warnercnr.colostate.edu/class_info/nr502/lg3/datums_coordinates/spatial_coordinate_systems.html

[John Kirk]

The map is functional now, with clickable quad stats. Quads not containing peaks show titles on mouseover without links to the database. The quantity of clickable quads will obviously multiply with lower elevation additions to our peak lists.

http://www.listsofjohn.com/Quads/COQuads.html

[John Kirk]

The quadrangles area has received an upgrade. When selecting a quad, either from a map, or the list (with optional member completion stats) a handy 8 directional navigation menu is accessible on the right side of the peak table:

[John Kirk]

I've actually found the directional quad feature to be surprisingly useful for determining ranked parent peaks for those of us working on lists.

[Layne Bracy]

John, well done both on the map and the directional feature! Sharp looking and user-friendly!