Where can you see the most 14ers from?

[espressoself]

Here's what I found. I used Caltopo: 25 ft for View from Here, and 2 meters (about 6 ft standing height) for Viewshed Analysis. I didn't count the peak you're standing on, so visible + not visible should equal 57.

Harvard: Visible- 48 (barely visible: Sunshine and Wetterhorn. Wetterhorn barely visible in Viewshed Analy). Not visible: Longs, Chicago Basin group, Wilson group, Culebra (9)

Tabeguache: Visible- 48 (barely visible: Quandary in Viewshed Analy but NOT visible in View from Here though). Not visible: Longs, Holy Cross, Massive, Windom, Capitol, Wilson group, Culebra (9)

Princeton: Visible- 47 (barely visible: Quandary, N Maroon, Sunshine). Not visible: Longs, Oxford, Eolus, N Eolus, Sneffels, Maroon, Wilson group, Culebra (10)

Antero: Visible- 47 (barely visible: Handies and Quandary). Not visible: Longs, Holy Cross, Massive, Maroon, N Maroon, Snowmass, Wilson group, Culebra (10)

Shavano: Visible- 45 (barely visible: Snowmasss). Not visible: Longs, Holy Cross, Massive, Windom, Sunlight, Pyramid, Capitol, Quandary, Wilson group, Culebra (12)

Feel free to check my work! Especially those that are barely visible and those that are not visible. Longs, the Wilson group, and Culebra are not visible from any of the above summits. Being able to see both San Juan and all Sangre summits minus Culebra is very helpful for this area of Colorado.

If you subtract Quandary from Tabeguache's view (it's labeled in View from Here, but you can't actually see it rising above the Cameron/Lincoln saddle), then Harvard might be the winner at 48 14er summits visible.

I had no idea about viewshed analysis in CalTopo, what a cool layer!

Edit: Using this, it looks like the furthest visible from Denali is Alaskan 13er, Parka Peak, 266 miles away!

Screenshot 2021-03-24 111049.png (1020.27 KiB) Viewed 1966 times

Pretty cool to use this coupled with the range rings. I'm definitely going to spend some time playing with this on CO peaks today!

[bdloftin77]

I had no idea about viewshed analysis in CalTopo, what a cool layer!

Edit: Using this, it looks like the furthest visible from Denali is Alaskan 13er, Parka Peak, 266 miles away! Screenshot 2021-03-24 111049.png Pretty cool to use this coupled with the range rings. I'm definitely going to spend some time playing with this on CO peaks today!

Is is very cool! I wish you could somehow export it to a KML or to a shapefile. Maybe there's a way to do that after all. Sometimes it's not the easiest to see the little patches of red covering only the tops of peaks, but it's still really cool and useful!

Very nice! Yeah it's really useful for lines of sight, which I find fascinating for some reason. Good idea with the range rings. I'll have to try that, too. Sometime I might make a spreadsheet of the furthest visible peak from each CO 14er.

During the 1800's, survey crews use to flash mirror signals between peaks. Uncompahgre Peak and Mt Ellen Utah (near Capitol Reef National Park) were visible from each other and mirror signals were flashed from one to the other. At 183 miles I believe it still a record for simultaneous visual communication between two points. Of course other sight distances are greater, but it is still cool that they could communicate visually between two points 183 miles apart back in the 1800's.

Here's a bit more info on heliograph flashings, following up on Scott's post: https://groups.io/g/otcommittee/topic/l ... 3196040?p=

A google search of some of these yields even more information. https://www.weather.gov/lch/cpm3 I didn't know the army used mirror flashing for communication sometimes, but it makes sense. Very cool.

[bdloftin77]

Alright, just finished going over my new spreadsheet. Found the furthest visible point from each Colorado 14er. Enjoy! As always, feel free to post any corrections that you might find.

A view from one direction isn't necessarily equal to the view from the opposite direction in terms of easy visibility. For example, if I poke my head over a fence, I have perfect visibility. But someone from the other side could only see my eyes and forehead. Same goes with mountains. The attached picture has the furthest visible point (most are mountain tops) from each 14er. However, some of these points might only be easily visible via a mirror flash - making out a mountain from a distance is subjective in how much of that mountain is visible to be, well, visible.

North Eolus is in a position to barely see Navajo Peak in southern Utah, 183.3 miles away. Viewshed Analysis at 2 m shows both summits can see each other. View from Here can see Navajo from N Eolus, but the summit of N Eolus is a bit too small to show up from Navajo, though I'm confident a mirror flash could be seen. Runners up above 180 miles are Uncompahgre to Mt Ellen in Utah (182.4 mi), and El Diente and Mt Wilson to Mt Taylor in New Mexico (181.2 and 181.1 mi).

Furthest Point Visible CO 14ers.JPG (108.79 KiB) Viewed 1838 times

Navajo from N Eolus

Navajo from N Eolus.JPG (27.38 KiB) Viewed 1838 times

[Scott P]

Uncompahgre Peak and Mt Ellen Utah (near Capitol Reef National Park) were visible from each other and mirror signals were flashed from one to the other. At 183 miles...

From a Colorado peak, the longest line of sight I know if is from Mt. Wilson to Fish Lake Hightop in central Utah. It's just over 200 miles beating out Uncompahgre to Mt Ellen. Can any line of sight in Colorado beat this?

Nice, good catch. I confirmed Unc to Ellen at ~182.5 mi, definitely further than Mt Wilson to Mt Taylor. That’s super cool! Makes me think of the beacons in Lord of the Rings. Wish I could have been there.

Viewshed Analysis shows Mt Wilson doesn’t quite see anything beyond Mt Ellen. Maybe PeakFinder shows it seeing further.

I used this site:

http://www.heywhatsthat.com/

Mt Terrill, just north of the summit of Fish Lake Hightop gives 202 miles to a visible part Mt Wilson. Perhaps the difference between viewshed analysis is that the summit of Mt Wilson isn't visible, just part of the mountain. I didn't know that before zooming way in just now and noticed that it is only part of Mt Wilson visible and not the very summit. If you do it in reverse from the summit of Wilson it doesn't go as far. Another peak or ridge must be in the way. Maybe try it in reverse from the site you are using.

Line of sight.JPG (25.48 KiB) Viewed 1769 times

[Scott P]

This is the longest line of sight I can find to or from Colorado. If heywhatsthat is accurate it is interesting that the longest line of sight (there might be more out there) isn't from a ranked summit itself, but from another part of the mountain.

The same site shows that Mount Marvine to Wilson Peak is 206 miles and that Fish Lake Hightop to Wilson Peak is 210 miles.

It appears that only the very tops of each peak would be visible from each other. Here are the profiles with the curvature of the earth taken in account.

Mount Marvine to Wilson Peak:

Line of sight 2.JPG (40.11 KiB) Viewed 1750 times

Fish Lake Hightop to Wilson Peak:

Line of sight 3.JPG (39.89 KiB) Viewed 1750 times

I assume that it would be hard to recognize Wilson Peak from Fish Lake Hightop or vice versa, but it does appear that they would be visible from each other.

line of sight 4.JPG (21.21 KiB) Viewed 1745 times

Edit: There might be a problem with heywhatsthat though. Now that I look at the profiles, if anything is above the curved line between the two points, would this indicate that the view is actually blocked between the two peaks? This could be the case? If it is I wonder why the colors are still shaded as visible?

[Scott P]

Runners up above 180 miles are Uncompahgre to Mt Ellen in Utah (182.4 mi)

As always, feel free to post any corrections that you might find.

If you are interested, the 1800's heliograph station where they flashed the mirror signals was on the north summit of Mount Ellen (11,506 feet) rather than the 11,522 point (highest) on your spreadsheet.

It is marked as "Mount Ellen Peak" on the topo maps:

https://listsofjohn.com/peak/18106

This should give a slightly longer line of sight than the 11,522 point used on your spreadsheet.

[Scott P]

For anyone interested, here's a photograph of Uncompaghre from Mt. Ellen Utah. Even though it is a zoom photograph, I'm surprised how identifiable its iconic shape is from ~182.4 miles away. (The photo is too wide to display in the thread, so click on the link).

http://www.modulatedlight.org/optical_comms/Uncmp4b.jpg

Pretty cool.

Here's the rest of the trip report if anyone else is interested:

http://www.modulatedlight.org/optical_c ... tical.html

[bdloftin77]

If you are interested, the 1800's heliograph station where they flashed the mirror signals was on the north summit of Mount Ellen (11,506 feet) rather than the 11,522 point (highest) on your spreadsheet.

It is marked as "Mount Ellen Peak" on the topo maps:

https://listsofjohn.com/peak/18106

This should give a slightly longer line of sight than the 11,522 point used on your spreadsheet.

Thanks for the info! I was trying to browse for which peak of Mt Ellen they signaled from, but could only find a generic "Mt Ellen" so far. Were you able to find a page that mentioned they were on the 11506' summit? It looks like the trip report link you posted (http://www.modulatedlight.org/optical_c ... tical.html) indicates they were on the 11522' summit, but maybe that report is incorrect. Very cool picture! You can clearly see Uncompahgre - I didn't expect that. Thanks for posting.

Heywhatsthat definitely has further views than Caltopo. After some digging, I think it's because the former includes a built in refractive index (only for panoramas and visibility shading, not for the line of sight elevation plot), and Caltopo does not. I can see how this would definitely boost distant views, because this is a very real effect.

(Sources)
Caltopo: https://caltopo.com/about/2013/05/18/viewshed-analysis/ If you search for "refraction" halfway down you'll see that the Viewshed Analysis does not include math for atmospheric refraction.
Heywhatsthat: http://www.heywhatsthat.com/techfaq.html Search for "terrerestrial refraction", and you'll get an explanation for how they include it. Not perfect because refraction does vary with temperature, pressure, and elevation, but at least they include it. A couple paragraphs above, talking about the straight and curved lines in the panoramas, it mentioned, "Note that these straight lines do not reflect the effects of refraction that we include in computing the panaromas and visibility cloaks." Perhaps El Diente and Wilson Peak might be visible from Fish Lake High Top due to refraction. Though perhaps there's indeed a problem, because the line of sight does seem to cut through some raised terrain. Not sure if refraction could overcome that or not.

I do know that Caltopo might at least slightly underestimate views. I can see Fishers Peak from a hill near my house (125.5 mi away), but Caltopo's Viewshed Analysis shading doesn't reach it. The View from Here from that location, even at +250 ft, doesn't quite see the summit. Only at the next level, 1000 ft, can you see Fishers Peak. That's probably due to atmospheric refraction. So the refraction adds at least 250' to my elevation for Caltopo viewing purposes.

Caltopo view toward Fishers Pk - 25' above ground

Fishers 25 ft.JPG (47.32 KiB) Viewed 1569 times

Caltopo view toward Fishers Pk - 1000' above ground

Fishers 1000 ft.JPG (60.79 KiB) Viewed 1569 times

Actual view of Fishers Pk

Fishers.jpg (110.02 KiB) Viewed 1569 times