Utah vs Colorado.

[Vincopotamus]

Some great points there Scott, thanks for that. I really enjoyed looking at those stats.

+1, that was just the thing I needed to wonk out on after a sad day. Whenever I get the bug to research some off-the-beaten path areas, there's usually good info about it written by Scott.

[bdloftin77]

4ers

Colorado = 0
Utah = 231

Alaska has by far the most spectacular alpine mountains in the US, but the weather is miserable there for most of the year. Most of the year you would be lucky to even see the mountains.

Washington (I am from Washington) has the most spectacular alpine mountains in the Lower 48, but the weather and climbing conditions are miserable for nine months out of the year.

Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana have spectacular alpine mountains, but are not as diverse and there isn't as much variety. They have no real canyon country either. On a cold January day, if I lived in Montana and wanted to go somewhere snow free and warm for a break, I would have to go a really long way to find that. Where I live now, I can be somewhere snow free and warm in a few hours, even if it is chilly here. Utah and Colorado both offer a lot of variety.

California is as at least as diverse as Utah and more diverse than Colorado. Plus it has great alpine mountains, beaches, desert scenes, impressive forest, etc. California though has one huge disadvantage over Utah and Colorado. The disadvantage of California is that it is California. I like to visit California on occasion, but I'd much rather live in Utah or Colorado.

I think Colorado has like 7ish 4ers? A few of them are on a ranch where they’ve removed wheels from trespassers and prosecuted others.

Cant wait to go to Alaska!

California is definitely my second favorite state (born in and biased toward Colorado). I agree - so much variety. But also.. California, like you said. Good to visit, but perhaps not to live in.

Do you have a favorite state or country, Scott? Seems like you’ve done a lot of traveling.

[Jbrow327]

Another interesting thing i just found out. If you measured every county highpoint in every state and then averaged them out for each state, utah is the highest with an average county highpoint of 11,222 feet. Colorado is second.

[ker0uac]

Im ashamed to say that I had to temporarily relocate to SoCal and I don't see anything impressive here. If anyone has any tips, please let me know. What locals call "mountains" here, I call "hills". And the Sierras are like ~4hrs drive. On the plus side, my modified 4Runner is getting lots of attention in luxury-sedan-innundated roads of LA lol.

[bdloftin77]

Another interesting thing i just found out. If you measured every county highpoint in every state and then averaged them out for each state, utah is the highest with an average county highpoint of 11,222 feet. Colorado is second.

Nice! Did you find the average for Colorado? I wonder what the next few states would be. Wyoming might be up there somewhere.

[ellenmseb]

Im ashamed to say that I had to temporarily relocate to SoCal and I don't see anything impressive here. If anyone has any tips, please let me know. What locals call "mountains" here, I call "hills". And the Sierras are like ~4hrs drive. On the plus side, my modified 4Runner is getting lots of attention in luxury-sedan-innundated roads of LA lol.

SoCal has many ultraprominent peaks: San Antonio 10k', San Gorgonio 11.5k', San Jacinto 10.8k', Telescope 11k', etc. They are way more prominent than the rockies because sea level is not far away. The coastal ranges often have easy day-hikes, but the sierra & desert ranges (Panamint, Coxcomb etc) are way more challenging than the rockies in terms of remoteness, scrambling, red tape, lack of beta. You can certainly fill a winter, spring and summer-fall climbing in the desert, coastal ranges and sierra respectively.

Being in SF, I'm jealous of a 10k' acclimitization opportunity 1 hour from downtown LA, and then only 4 hours from the sierra instead of 7.

snwburd.com and peakbagger.com are the best resources.

Relevant peakbagging lists are SPS, DPS, and HPS. Peaks are chosen for their aesthetic, cultural and historical importance, and prominence in addition to elevation. Each list has an 'emblem' subset of the best peaks.

[ellenmseb]

Im ashamed to say that I had to temporarily relocate to SoCal and I don't see anything impressive here. If anyone has any tips, please let me know. What locals call "mountains" here, I call "hills". And the Sierras are like ~4hrs drive. On the plus side, my modified 4Runner is getting lots of attention in luxury-sedan-innundated roads of LA lol.

SoCal has many ultraprominent peaks: San Antonio 10k', San Gorgonio 11.5k', San Jacinto 10.8k', Telescope 11k', etc. They are way more prominent than the rockies because sea level is not far away. The coastal ranges often have easy day-hikes, but the sierra & desert ranges (Panamint, Coxcomb etc) are way more challenging than the rockies in terms of remoteness, scrambling, red tape, lack of beta. You can certainly fill a winter, spring and summer-fall climbing in the desert, coastal ranges and sierra respectively.

Being in SF, I'm jealous of a 10k' acclimitization opportunity 1 hour from downtown LA, and then only 4 hours from the sierra instead of 7.

snwburd.com and peakbagger.com are the best resources.

Relevant peakbagging lists are SPS, DPS, and HPS. Peaks are chosen for their aesthetic, cultural and historical importance, and prominence in addition to elevation. Each list has an 'emblem' subset of the best peaks.

Let me piss some some “people” off. I’d bet my property near SA TX is worth more than that “mountain”. Have fun guys!

Which mountain do you mean? San Antonio? It has a ski resort lol.

[Scott P]

Im ashamed to say that I had to temporarily relocate to SoCal and I don't see anything impressive here. If anyone has any tips, please let me know. What locals call "mountains" here, I call "hills". And the Sierras are like ~4hrs drive. On the plus side, my modified 4Runner is getting lots of attention in luxury-sedan-innundated roads of LA lol.

Are you interested in canyoneering at all? There are a lot of good technical canyons in those mountains, though I haven't personally been. My friends have though and talk about then often. Pictures look cool.

[Scott P]

Do you have a favorite state or country, Scott? Seems like you’ve done a lot of traveling.

Utah is my favorite state to hike in, Colorado (as long as it's on the Western Slope) is my favorite state to live in, and Nepal is my favorite country to visit.

[ker0uac]

Im ashamed to say that I had to temporarily relocate to SoCal and I don't see anything impressive here. If anyone has any tips, please let me know. What locals call "mountains" here, I call "hills". And the Sierras are like ~4hrs drive. On the plus side, my modified 4Runner is getting lots of attention in luxury-sedan-innundated roads of LA lol.

Are you interested in canyoneering at all? There are a lot of good technical canyons in those mountains, though I haven't personally been. My friends have though and talk about then often. Pictures look cool.

Yep pretty much everything here is a canyon.... half of the roads are called canyon too... and it's nice that the city grew so much that it's glue to the canyons, unlike Denver which is not technically at the front range's foothill, so it takes me just 10min to get to a ridge trail... I feel soooo in shape here, there's oxygen everywhere!!! I can literally run up a steep incline for 10min

[bdloftin77]

Running with Scott P's idea, here's a compilation of the western CONUS peak counts for each elevation range.

Credit: listsofjohn.com

State Elevation Range Counts.JPG (68.75 KiB) Viewed 3534 times

Colorado is king of the high country in the lower 48. California has a good overall spread, but has high counts especially in the 4ers and under range. Despite its huge size, it still has the second highest concentration of peaks, behind Washington. Not surprisingly, California, Oregon, and Washington all have high counts in the lower elevation ranges, being right near the coast. Arizona also has high counts of low elevation peaks.

Colorado has the 4th lowest concentration of peaks. If we donate the vast plains east of I-25 to Kansas, we'd be left with about 63,000 square miles (using ArcMap and I-25 TIGER shapefile). The new concentration would be 0.0697 peaks per square mile, which looks a lot better.

[Scott P]

Colorado is king of the high country in the lower 48. California has a good overall spread, but has high counts especially in the 4ers and under range. Despite its huge size, it still has the second highest concentration of peaks, behind Washington. Not surprisingly, California, Oregon, and Washington all have high counts in the lower elevation ranges, being right near the coast. Arizona also has high counts of low elevation peaks.

Awesome analysis! Are you OK with me using it for future references?

Colorado has the 4th lowest concentration of peaks. If we donate the vast plains east of I-25 to Kansas, we'd be left with about 63,000 square miles (using ArcMap and I-25 TIGER shapefile). The new concentration would be 0.0697 peaks per square mile, which looks a lot better.

It is interesting that California would still beat Colorado even if the eastern plains were eliminated and even with California's huge size and large flatlands in the Central Valleys. Imagine how everything would be if the state had the same population as Colorado. Even with all of the people, California still has some of the larges roadless areas in the Lower 48. It's too bad that California is so California-ish. Other wise I think I could live there.