SummitPost.org

From the summit of Mt. Baldy in southern California, the snowy Sierras can be seen far to the north, as in this picture:



There are two clusters of snowy peaks in the distance. I assume that the peaks on the right are the Whitney/Langley group. But what is that snowy peak on the left (which is actually in the top center of the photo)?

Sam Page wrote:There are two clusters of snowy peaks in the distance. I assume that the peaks on the right are the Whitney/Langley group. But what is that snowy peak on the left (which is actually in the top center of the photo)?

This stuff always fascinates me, so I used the program I wrote to generate an image, in order to check.

The unknowns in the center are the Kaweahs, over 161 miles away. And my program also confirmed that Whitney and Langley are on the far right. Whitney is 162.4 miles away.

From "L.A." too...

yo-
it might be Olancha Peak or that stuff there

yaknjorgl wrote:yo-
it might be Olancha Peak or that stuff there

Olancha Peak is also visible from Mount San Antonio, but it's just outside the right side of the photo. Upon closer inspection, it looks like Langley might also be cut out of the photo, and that's just Whitney and some 13-ers on the right. But Langley would definitely be at least as obvious as Whitney from this viewpoint, appearing roughly as high, but having a broader, more dome-shaped appearance from this angle.

A different photo from the same viewpoint would show Olancha, but at 12123-feet, Olancha likely would not be as obvious as the 13800 and 14000+ mountains in this photo, due to having a lot less snow cover on 16 October.

I agree with Day Hiker based on my satellite observations from my favorite NOAA link:
http://sat.wrh.noaa.gov/satellite/shows ... vis&size=1

The group on the left may include some bits of the peaks in the Mineral King area.

Day Hiker, Can you post your map??

OK I don't have any fancy software or such, but I'm not getting how Olancha peak and Langley can be off frame right of the Whitney group from there when they are to the south.

Just by eye I would guess you're seeing the Whitney area crest in the center, The Inyo/Whites to the right and the Owens Valley between. Without a compass bearing for the camera it's just a guess.

SpiderSavage wrote:Day Hiker, Can you post your map??

Yes. I need a few to make a better one, worthy of posting.

ksolem wrote:OK I don't have any fancy software or such, but I'm not getting how Olancha peak and Langley can be off frame right of the Whitney group from there when they are to the south.

Just by eye I would guess you're seeing the Whitney area crest in the center, The Inyo/Whites to the right and the Owens Valley between. Without a compass bearing for the camera it's just a guess.

It will make sense when you see the generated image. The smaller hills in the foreground match up with those in the photo, as well, helping to confirm the camera direction.

By the way, my "fancy software" is just Microsoft Excel, and I did all the math and wrote all the Visual Basic code for this myself. I spent a lot of time but no money.

Day Hiker wrote:Upon closer inspection, it looks like Langley might also be cut out of the photo, and that's just Whitney and some 13-ers on the right. But Langley would definitely be at least as obvious as Whitney from this viewpoint, appearing roughly as high, but having a broader, more dome-shaped appearance from this angle.

Yes, a broad, snowy mountain was visible just to the right of the image. I assumed that it was Langley and the visible high point on the right is Whitney.

Day Hiker wrote:

SpiderSavage wrote:Day Hiker, Can you post your map??

Yes. I need a few to make a better one, worthy of posting.

ksolem wrote:OK I don't have any fancy software or such, but I'm not getting how Olancha peak and Langley can be off frame right of the Whitney group from there when they are to the south.

Just by eye I would guess you're seeing the Whitney area crest in the center, The Inyo/Whites to the right and the Owens Valley between. Without a compass bearing for the camera it's just a guess.

It will make sense when you see the generated image. The smaller hills in the foreground match up with those in the photo, as well, helping to confirm the camera direction.

By the way, my "fancy software" is just Microsoft Excel, and I did all the math and wrote all the Visual Basic code for this myself. I spent a lot of time but no money.

Ok, here it is. My original image was 1800 wide, but I resized it to 50% to save on bandwidth. I tried to match with the photo by scaling the photo a bit. The scaling was just a bit of trial and error, so it is not exact. But I put vertical lines between the two images to show corresponding locations for Mount Kaweah and Mount Whitney.

In case you're wondering how I determine what's what in the generated image, it's because my program also creates an auxiliary file that stores the lat, lon, and elevation corresponding to every pixel in the generated bitmap. So after it's finished, I pick a point on the image, get the coordinates for that pixel, and enter those coordinates into my program, which then gives me the lat, lon, and elevation of that point. I can then compare the location to that of known points, or I can look at the point on MyTopo.com or Google Earth to identify it.

I could increase the resolution a bit, which would improve the appearance of the foreground hills. But it wasn't important for identifying the distant peaks, and using higher-resolution data would make it take longer.

Day Hiker wrote:By the way, my "fancy software" is just Microsoft Excel, and I did all the math and wrote all the Visual Basic code for this myself. I spent a lot of time but no money.

Damn, I feel like a dumbass LOL Nice work

I'm also a bit puzzled why the southern peaks appear to the right of Whitney though? Is Mt Baldy not slightly to the east of the Sierra group? Or are Olancha and Langley significantly east of Whitney?

Luciano136 wrote:I'm also a bit puzzled why the southern peaks appear to the right of Whitney though? Is Mt Baldy not slightly to the east of the Sierra group? Or are Olancha and Langley significantly east of Whitney?

He has it correct, that threw me as well but if you look at google terrain and the way the peaks align from Baldy it makes sense. Your looking at Olancha in a Northeasterly direction and Olancha is the closest of the three. So if your driving up 395 once you are around Olancha your change your heading to northwest so Langley and Whitney would align slighly left of Olancha.

Luciano136 wrote:I'm also a bit puzzled why the southern peaks appear to the right of Whitney though? Is Mt Baldy not slightly to the east of the Sierra group? Or are Olancha and Langley significantly east of Whitney?

Yes, San Antonio is east of everything seen here. I centered my generated image on Mount Kaweah, which is at bearing 343.4, so the view is just west of north. The image has an 18-degree angle of view, so the left side of the image is at bearing 334.4, and the right side is at 352.4, which is still west of north.

The reason the southern peaks are to the right of Whitney is because Olancha, Langley, and Whitney are lined up in a northwesterly "diagonal." They are not inline due north and south from each other. The line from Mount Langley to Mount Whitney has bearing 322.6, and from Olancha to Langley it is 339.3.

johnm wrote:

Luciano136 wrote:I'm also a bit puzzled why the southern peaks appear to the right of Whitney though? Is Mt Baldy not slightly to the east of the Sierra group? Or are Olancha and Langley significantly east of Whitney?

He has it correct, that threw me as well but if you look at google terrain and the way the peaks align from Baldy it makes sense. Your looking at Olancha in a Northeasterly direction and Olancha is the closest of the three. So if your driving up 395 once you are around Olancha your change your heading to northwest so Langley and Whitney would align slighly left of Olancha.

Ok, that's what I figured. So, basically Olancha and Langley are (south)east of Whitney, which is the only way this would work.