I'm getting ready to jump into this debate up above, but I wanted to point out a potential error in your text.
There are no peaks in the 48 states whose prominence is between 1,500 meters and 5,000 feet.
At first, I thought, "I'll be darned, wouldn't have guessed that!", but then I saw a peak that seems to be within that range. Mt. Moriah, NV has 4931' of prominence, or am I missing something??
I like that your're including the pre-eruption St. Helens, btw :)
Also, if you put a nonbreaking space (SP wouldn't post the code in this message, so look it up or PM me for the code) in the empty table cell for St. Helens, the table won't look as funky there.
Thanks for the idea on the nbsp Ryan. That did work. I was thinking about putting something like N/A in there or something. Do you know of a WYSIWYG HTML editor that allows easily adding columns to a table without inserting tons of unusable or undesired style garbage? Everything I have available either doesn't do the WYSIWYG or it inserts all that style stuff.
The list I have of the 400 "Finest" in the 48 states has Moriah at P4907, which I got out of the 50 Finest list for Nevada in Andy Martin's County Highpoints book. peakbagger.com shows P4893. I see where you get the P4931, at peaklist.org. Interesting! Aaron Maizlish is the owner of peaklist.org, and he's in the Prominence forum, where it was once claimed that the 48 states don't have a peak between 1500 meters and 5000 feet. Looks like this one will take some research. Thanks for pointing it out!
Glad you like the inclusion of St. Helens. It was of course for strictly selfish purposes, as I've never seen a list that does what mine does regarding the eruption. I've got 47 of the Ultras now, and hope to complete all 58 by 2007. Bob Packard has completed the current list of 57, but didn't climb pre-eruption St. Helens, so the list of 58 is still virgin!
Mt. Ellen (VT) is not on the list but is linked in the group of mountains that is on the left side of the page (3rd page of mountains). I am guessing it was a mistake.
Nice List BTW.
Later, Rob
Ha, the truth finally emerges. I had both Mt. Ellens in the list by mistake. I discovered this when I was going through the list again and realized that Crazy Peak, MT doesn't have an SP page either, which made my count off. So I had to scour the list to find which one didn't belong, and Voila! there was Mt. Ellen VT. So you were correct all along Rob. Thanks! -Bob
SawtoothSean - Feb 24, 2006 12:02 am - Voted 10/10
Optimistic Prominence
"objective" is a term used when Prominence is defined I've noticed. I find Prominence much more ambiguous and subjective (as a list) than say the U.S. State High Points. I'm a big fan of subjectivity, the YDS and Grade clasifications for rock climbing are two big examples. When defining Prominence utilizing a clean prominence definition vs. an optimistic prominence definition, the whole concept becomes completely subjective. A clean prominence definition utilizes the higher of the contour lines on the saddle. If an optimistic prominence is utilized and the lowest saddle between two mountains (which actually could be a valley floor) is used, then the tallest side of a peak could be considered. Using clean prominence penalizes those peaks that have three steep sides and maybe one side with a connecting ridge to another peak, and rewards those that have 360 degrees of steepness. This seems like a subjective measurement.
This list page has generated more comments than many mountain pages! Thanks Bob.
Hmm... not quite. The key saddle in prominence is a completely unambiguous entity. Unless more than one saddle is located within the same elevation range (which *does* happen... Mosca Pass and a 9720-9760' saddle N of Mount Zwischen are a good example; one of these two is the key saddle for Crestone Peak), the key saddle is never in dispute; it's just the elevation used for that key saddle that's not as clear-cut. The difference between optimistic and clean prominence is only as large as the contour interval of the maps.
The definition of prominence is precise, and if we had precise data there would be no subjectivity whatsoever. The only problem is that most saddles and some summits are not measured, so we're largely dependent on contour lines on topo maps. I prefer clean prominence because we know or have a high confidence that it is at least so much. However, surely there are cases where two mountains that are close in P are ranked wrong because of inexact data. Also note that for each state that has P2000 peaks, there is a list of peaks in the error range, meaning that they COULD have more than P2000 but there's no way to know for sure. -Bob
how about a climbers log for those who have completed the list? not that I am anywhere near signing it (only four down), but it would be nice to hear from those who have completed the list. besides, 57 of the most sought after summits in the 48 contiguous states is a lot to brag about.
It's a great idea. However I haven't seen a way to attach a log to a list. Of course when you sign the logs of the peaks in the list, it would be possible to display which of the lists's peaks you've climbed. That would actually be a cool feature - maybe one of us should suggest it.
If there were a log associated with the list itself, only one person has done all 57 current peaks, but he didn't climb pre-eruption St. Helens. So this list of 58 still hasn't been completed as far as anyone knows.
I'll be adding more material to this page, but meanwhile if you're interested in who's doing what in Prominence bagging, take a look at this page.
If you measure a peak purely by its highest saddle with a peak that rises 300 feet above it, Mount Whitney's key saddle is the trail crest at 13,200 feet, Making prominence less than 2000 feet. If you consider Mount Muir as part of the Whitney Massif, like i do, the Whitney Russell saddle is located around 11,500 feet. Similarly, Shastina has 450 feet of prominence above the 11,900 foot saddle, making Shasta's Prominence less than 300 feet. Mount Raineer's saddle with Little tahoma peak can not be more than 10000 feet, so raineer does not have 13000 feet of prominence. I am not trying to critisize. Prominence is very paradoxial in my view. I think that Mountains like SHastina and Litle tahoma peak are mere shoulders of SHasta and Raineer, but in the case of Mountains like WHintey, the actual boundaries of the peak and another are variable.Russell probably should not be consiedered part of whitney, making its saddle with Whitney the Key saddle for whitney. Also Raineer has a 13000 foot drop only on one side. The other side of the mountain is 6000 feet at the base. I think that topo prominence should be taken from the average of the base elevation, and Whitney seems nearly immposible to measure in base, as it is arguable. Once again, this is not critisism, just another's veiw.
Hey LMG, thanks for the post. Good to see that you're thinking about these important mountain subjects.
The definition of topographic prominence goes like this: It's the elevation difference between a summit and the highest saddle that connects that summit to higher ground. So the trail crest can't be Whitney's saddle because it doesn't really connect Whitney to higher ground.
I can understand your confusion, however, because it's sort of hard to define this or to think about this. So we have several definitions that put this concept in different perspectives. Another definition goes like this: A peak's prominence is the minimim NET elevation loss you would have to descend to be able to get to higher ground.
Here's another definition: Prominence is the elevation difference between the summit and the lowest elevation contour which circles that peak but no HIGHER peak. If you go down one more foot, that contour would stretch beyond the key saddle and encircle another higher summit somewhere.
It is Little Tahoma's prominence that is measured by the saddle between it and Rainier. It is Shastina's prominence that is measured by the saddle between it and Shasta. Rainier's key saddle is somewhere in British Columbia. I'm not sure where Whitney's or Shasta's saddles are.
I wish I had known about prominence when I was your age. I might have become a peakbagger at age 20 instead of age 55!
Thanks for the clarification. I must have missed that on the main page. I belive Whitney's saddle is somewhere in Mexico, as Popo is the nearest higher peak. Shasta i still don't know. The nearest higher peak is WHite Mountain, so the saddle might be in Owens valley, but i sure thought that Shasta rose 10000 feet on all sides. :-)
Bob, it appears the Signature photo on this page showing Mt. Cleveland no longer exists. You'll want to reset the signature photo to a different image.
RyanS - Feb 23, 2006 6:46 pm - Voted 10/10
Good idea posting this list, Bob!I'm getting ready to jump into this debate up above, but I wanted to point out a potential error in your text.
There are no peaks in the 48 states whose prominence is between 1,500 meters and 5,000 feet.
At first, I thought, "I'll be darned, wouldn't have guessed that!", but then I saw a peak that seems to be within that range. Mt. Moriah, NV has 4931' of prominence, or am I missing something??
I like that your're including the pre-eruption St. Helens, btw :)
Also, if you put a nonbreaking space (SP wouldn't post the code in this message, so look it up or PM me for the code) in the empty table cell for St. Helens, the table won't look as funky there.
Bob Bolton - Feb 24, 2006 5:42 am - Hasn't voted
Re: Good idea posting this list, Bob!Thanks for the idea on the nbsp Ryan. That did work. I was thinking about putting something like N/A in there or something. Do you know of a WYSIWYG HTML editor that allows easily adding columns to a table without inserting tons of unusable or undesired style garbage? Everything I have available either doesn't do the WYSIWYG or it inserts all that style stuff.
The list I have of the 400 "Finest" in the 48 states has Moriah at P4907, which I got out of the 50 Finest list for Nevada in Andy Martin's County Highpoints book. peakbagger.com shows P4893. I see where you get the P4931, at peaklist.org. Interesting! Aaron Maizlish is the owner of peaklist.org, and he's in the Prominence forum, where it was once claimed that the 48 states don't have a peak between 1500 meters and 5000 feet. Looks like this one will take some research. Thanks for pointing it out!
Glad you like the inclusion of St. Helens. It was of course for strictly selfish purposes, as I've never seen a list that does what mine does regarding the eruption. I've got 47 of the Ultras now, and hope to complete all 58 by 2007. Bob Packard has completed the current list of 57, but didn't climb pre-eruption St. Helens, so the list of 58 is still virgin!
-Bob
RyanS - Feb 24, 2006 8:20 pm - Voted 10/10
Re: Good idea posting this list, Bob!so the list of 58 is still virgin!
Very cool, best of luck over the next two years!
I'm curious, so let us know what you find out about Moriah.
I emailed you about table formatting. I hate all that core-dump crap, too!
Rob A - Feb 23, 2006 7:15 pm - Voted 9/10
Mt Ellen V.T.Mt. Ellen (VT) is not on the list but is linked in the group of mountains that is on the left side of the page (3rd page of mountains). I am guessing it was a mistake.
Nice List BTW.
Later, Rob
Bob Bolton - Feb 24, 2006 5:44 am - Hasn't voted
Re: Mt Ellen V.T.You'd be guessing right. Thanks for pointing it out - it'll be fixed very soon. -Bob
Bob Bolton - Feb 24, 2006 5:46 am - Hasn't voted
Re: Mt Ellen V.T.Ooops, that is actually "Mt. Ellen (UT)", so it's right after all. Thanks anyway. -Bob
Bob Bolton - Feb 26, 2006 5:17 am - Hasn't voted
Re: Mt Ellen V.T.Ha, the truth finally emerges. I had both Mt. Ellens in the list by mistake. I discovered this when I was going through the list again and realized that Crazy Peak, MT doesn't have an SP page either, which made my count off. So I had to scour the list to find which one didn't belong, and Voila! there was Mt. Ellen VT. So you were correct all along Rob. Thanks! -Bob
SawtoothSean - Feb 24, 2006 12:02 am - Voted 10/10
Optimistic Prominence"objective" is a term used when Prominence is defined I've noticed. I find Prominence much more ambiguous and subjective (as a list) than say the U.S. State High Points. I'm a big fan of subjectivity, the YDS and Grade clasifications for rock climbing are two big examples. When defining Prominence utilizing a clean prominence definition vs. an optimistic prominence definition, the whole concept becomes completely subjective. A clean prominence definition utilizes the higher of the contour lines on the saddle. If an optimistic prominence is utilized and the lowest saddle between two mountains (which actually could be a valley floor) is used, then the tallest side of a peak could be considered. Using clean prominence penalizes those peaks that have three steep sides and maybe one side with a connecting ridge to another peak, and rewards those that have 360 degrees of steepness. This seems like a subjective measurement.
This list page has generated more comments than many mountain pages! Thanks Bob.
RyanS - Feb 24, 2006 3:48 am - Voted 10/10
Re: Optimistic ProminenceHmm... not quite. The key saddle in prominence is a completely unambiguous entity. Unless more than one saddle is located within the same elevation range (which *does* happen... Mosca Pass and a 9720-9760' saddle N of Mount Zwischen are a good example; one of these two is the key saddle for Crestone Peak), the key saddle is never in dispute; it's just the elevation used for that key saddle that's not as clear-cut. The difference between optimistic and clean prominence is only as large as the contour interval of the maps.
Bob Bolton - Feb 24, 2006 6:33 am - Hasn't voted
Re: Optimistic ProminenceThe definition of prominence is precise, and if we had precise data there would be no subjectivity whatsoever. The only problem is that most saddles and some summits are not measured, so we're largely dependent on contour lines on topo maps. I prefer clean prominence because we know or have a high confidence that it is at least so much. However, surely there are cases where two mountains that are close in P are ranked wrong because of inexact data. Also note that for each state that has P2000 peaks, there is a list of peaks in the error range, meaning that they COULD have more than P2000 but there's no way to know for sure. -Bob
madmallard - Feb 25, 2006 11:06 pm - Hasn't voted
climber's logit's nice to see this list on sp. thanks!
how about a climbers log for those who have completed the list? not that I am anywhere near signing it (only four down), but it would be nice to hear from those who have completed the list. besides, 57 of the most sought after summits in the 48 contiguous states is a lot to brag about.
Bob Bolton - Feb 26, 2006 12:00 am - Hasn't voted
Re: climber's logIt's a great idea. However I haven't seen a way to attach a log to a list. Of course when you sign the logs of the peaks in the list, it would be possible to display which of the lists's peaks you've climbed. That would actually be a cool feature - maybe one of us should suggest it.
If there were a log associated with the list itself, only one person has done all 57 current peaks, but he didn't climb pre-eruption St. Helens. So this list of 58 still hasn't been completed as far as anyone knows.
I'll be adding more material to this page, but meanwhile if you're interested in who's doing what in Prominence bagging, take a look at this page.
Bob
RyanS - Feb 26, 2006 12:13 am - Voted 10/10
Re: climber's logSP member, John Kirk, has a website where you can track your Ultras completion, as well.
dillweed - May 4, 2006 12:53 pm - Hasn't voted
Re: climber's logyour link is bad, here is the current one:
RyanS - May 4, 2006 7:53 pm - Voted 10/10
Re: climber's logIt was current at the time. I can't keep track of everything! :)
JasonH - Mar 4, 2006 4:57 am - Voted 9/10
Untitled CommentCool looking page. This is a great way to rate mountains.
Little Mountain Goat - Jun 8, 2008 11:11 am - Hasn't voted
SaddleIf you measure a peak purely by its highest saddle with a peak that rises 300 feet above it, Mount Whitney's key saddle is the trail crest at 13,200 feet, Making prominence less than 2000 feet. If you consider Mount Muir as part of the Whitney Massif, like i do, the Whitney Russell saddle is located around 11,500 feet. Similarly, Shastina has 450 feet of prominence above the 11,900 foot saddle, making Shasta's Prominence less than 300 feet. Mount Raineer's saddle with Little tahoma peak can not be more than 10000 feet, so raineer does not have 13000 feet of prominence. I am not trying to critisize. Prominence is very paradoxial in my view. I think that Mountains like SHastina and Litle tahoma peak are mere shoulders of SHasta and Raineer, but in the case of Mountains like WHintey, the actual boundaries of the peak and another are variable.Russell probably should not be consiedered part of whitney, making its saddle with Whitney the Key saddle for whitney. Also Raineer has a 13000 foot drop only on one side. The other side of the mountain is 6000 feet at the base. I think that topo prominence should be taken from the average of the base elevation, and Whitney seems nearly immposible to measure in base, as it is arguable. Once again, this is not critisism, just another's veiw.
Bob Bolton - Jun 8, 2008 11:54 am - Hasn't voted
Re: SaddleHey LMG, thanks for the post. Good to see that you're thinking about these important mountain subjects.
The definition of topographic prominence goes like this: It's the elevation difference between a summit and the highest saddle that connects that summit to higher ground. So the trail crest can't be Whitney's saddle because it doesn't really connect Whitney to higher ground.
I can understand your confusion, however, because it's sort of hard to define this or to think about this. So we have several definitions that put this concept in different perspectives. Another definition goes like this: A peak's prominence is the minimim NET elevation loss you would have to descend to be able to get to higher ground.
Here's another definition: Prominence is the elevation difference between the summit and the lowest elevation contour which circles that peak but no HIGHER peak. If you go down one more foot, that contour would stretch beyond the key saddle and encircle another higher summit somewhere.
It is Little Tahoma's prominence that is measured by the saddle between it and Rainier. It is Shastina's prominence that is measured by the saddle between it and Shasta. Rainier's key saddle is somewhere in British Columbia. I'm not sure where Whitney's or Shasta's saddles are.
I wish I had known about prominence when I was your age. I might have become a peakbagger at age 20 instead of age 55!
Happy climbing!
Bob
Little Mountain Goat - Jun 8, 2008 7:16 pm - Hasn't voted
Re: SaddleThanks for the clarification. I must have missed that on the main page. I belive Whitney's saddle is somewhere in Mexico, as Popo is the nearest higher peak. Shasta i still don't know. The nearest higher peak is WHite Mountain, so the saddle might be in Owens valley, but i sure thought that Shasta rose 10000 feet on all sides. :-)
Klenke - Oct 24, 2008 10:06 pm - Voted 10/10
Signature photo is no moreBob, it appears the Signature photo on this page showing Mt. Cleveland no longer exists. You'll want to reset the signature photo to a different image.