Where can you see the most 14ers from?

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Re: Where can you see the most 14ers from?

Post by bdloftin77 »

shelly+ wrote: Tue Mar 23, 2021 4:18 pm
espressoself wrote: Tue Mar 23, 2021 4:02 pm Now I want to know what the furthest visible point is from the top of a 14er... According to PeakFinder, from the top of Princeton, you can see 11er Greenie Peak in NM, which is 145mi away. Has anyone done this?
From Shavano I spotted San Antonio Mountain in New Mexico, which is apparently 138 miles distant. But there may be better examples.
From El Diente and Mt Wilson, you can see Mt Taylor in New Mexico! ~181 miles.

From Mt Whitney, you can see San Gorgonio Mountain - 190 miles.

I'd have to look into how far you can see from Mt Rainier again. Though humidity might be an issue for actual visibility.
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Re: Where can you see the most 14ers from?

Post by 719BR »

bdloftin77 wrote: Tue Mar 23, 2021 4:28 pm
shelly+ wrote: Tue Mar 23, 2021 4:18 pm
espressoself wrote: Tue Mar 23, 2021 4:02 pm Now I want to know what the furthest visible point is from the top of a 14er... According to PeakFinder, from the top of Princeton, you can see 11er Greenie Peak in NM, which is 145mi away. Has anyone done this?
From Shavano I spotted San Antonio Mountain in New Mexico, which is apparently 138 miles distant. But there may be better examples.
From El Diente and Mt Wilson, you can see Mt Taylor in New Mexico! ~181 miles.

From Mt Whitney, you can see San Gorgonio Mountain - 190 miles.

I'd have to look into how far you can see from Mt Rainier again. Though humidity might be an issue for actual visibility.
you can easily see hood from rainier. in fact i've got a picture of me on the summit with adams and hood in the background. i don't know exactly how far that is, but it has to be close to the numbers you gave above.
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Re: Where can you see the most 14ers from?

Post by espressoself »

bdloftin77 wrote: Tue Mar 23, 2021 4:28 pm
shelly+ wrote: Tue Mar 23, 2021 4:18 pm From Shavano I spotted San Antonio Mountain in New Mexico, which is apparently 138 miles distant. But there may be better examples.
From El Diente and Mt Wilson, you can see Mt Taylor in New Mexico! ~181 miles.

From Mt Whitney, you can see San Gorgonio Mountain - 190 miles.

I'd have to look into how far you can see from Mt Rainier again. Though humidity might be an issue for actual visibility.
I ran this through PeakFinder, and it puts Mt. Wilson and Wilson Peak at the top--Geyser Peak in UT, 196 miles away. That's wild!

I'd love to see the figures from non-CO peaks, though. Apparently a computer model was able to determine the furthest theoretic sightline on Earth, and it's 334 miles, between Mt. Dankova in Kyrgyzstan to Hindu Tagh in China.
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Re: Where can you see the most 14ers from?

Post by bdloftin77 »

espressoself wrote: Tue Mar 23, 2021 4:02 pm
I checked on Princeton, and if you use CalTopo, you actually get 49 -- Crestone Needle makes the cut...could it be that 25 foot tall minimum vantage point? I may have to go through this and corroborate the rest of them.
The highest ones I got were Harvard (49), Tabeguache (48), Princeton/Antero (47), and Shavano (45). I'll double check them to see which ones I thought you couldn't quite see. Yeah, the 25 min vantage point might be a factor? I tried to use both the View from Here as well as the Viewshed Analysis (center view on top of summit first, then > left pane > Add New Layer > Viewshed Analysis, or top left tab (+Add) > Viewshed Analysis (under new layer) ). When I double check again, I'll see if there's differences between the View from Here (25 ft min) and Viewshed Analysis (custom height) for which peaks it thinks are/aren't visible. I'm thinking it might not make a huge difference. I do remember that some peaks barely made the cut for being visible/not visible, thus potentially slightly altering the total.
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Re: Where can you see the most 14ers from?

Post by bdloftin77 »

espressoself wrote: Tue Mar 23, 2021 4:49 pm
bdloftin77 wrote: Tue Mar 23, 2021 4:28 pm
shelly+ wrote: Tue Mar 23, 2021 4:18 pm From Shavano I spotted San Antonio Mountain in New Mexico, which is apparently 138 miles distant. But there may be better examples.
From El Diente and Mt Wilson, you can see Mt Taylor in New Mexico! ~181 miles.

From Mt Whitney, you can see San Gorgonio Mountain - 190 miles.

I'd have to look into how far you can see from Mt Rainier again. Though humidity might be an issue for actual visibility.
I ran this through PeakFinder, and it puts Mt. Wilson and Wilson Peak at the top--Geyser Peak in UT, 196 miles away. That's wild!

I'd love to see the figures from non-CO peaks, though. Apparently a computer model was able to determine the furthest theoretic sightline on Earth, and it's 334 miles, between Mt. Dankova in Kyrgyzstan to Hindu Tagh in China.
Nice! I wonder if Caltopo agrees for Geyser Peak? I think I trust Caltopo a bit more than Peakfinder for some reason, though Peakfinder is definitely easier to quickly find far peaks. It'd be interesting to know which does have better viewing accuracy. There's definitely differences between what you can see in Caltopo vs Peakfinder.

334... that's pretty far!
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Re: Where can you see the most 14ers from?

Post by Chicago Transplant »

brichardsson wrote: Tue Mar 23, 2021 4:43 pm
bdloftin77 wrote: Tue Mar 23, 2021 4:28 pm
shelly+ wrote: Tue Mar 23, 2021 4:18 pm

From Shavano I spotted San Antonio Mountain in New Mexico, which is apparently 138 miles distant. But there may be better examples.
From El Diente and Mt Wilson, you can see Mt Taylor in New Mexico! ~181 miles.

From Mt Whitney, you can see San Gorgonio Mountain - 190 miles.

I'd have to look into how far you can see from Mt Rainier again. Though humidity might be an issue for actual visibility.
you can easily see hood from rainier. in fact i've got a picture of me on the summit with adams and hood in the background. i don't know exactly how far that is, but it has to be close to the numbers you gave above.
I think Rainier to Hood is like 100 miles. We didn't summit Rainier, but could already see Jefferson 150 miles away from our turnaround point, so I'm sure you can see even farther from the summit.
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Re: Where can you see the most 14ers from?

Post by bdloftin77 »

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.
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Re: Where can you see the most 14ers from?

Post by bdloftin77 »

Chicago Transplant wrote: Tue Mar 23, 2021 5:19 pm I think Rainier to Hood is like 100 miles. We didn't summit Rainier, but could already see Jefferson 150 miles away from our turnaround point, so I'm sure you can see even farther from the summit.
Using Viewshed Analysis, it looks like the furthest visible peak from Rainier might be Shudder Mountain in Canada at 226.5 miles. Interesting names here - Tremor Mtn, Shudder Mtnn, Quiver Pk, and The Ripsaw.
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Re: Where can you see the most 14ers from?

Post by Chicago Transplant »

bdloftin77 wrote: Tue Mar 23, 2021 5:45 pm
Chicago Transplant wrote: Tue Mar 23, 2021 5:19 pm I think Rainier to Hood is like 100 miles. We didn't summit Rainier, but could already see Jefferson 150 miles away from our turnaround point, so I'm sure you can see even farther from the summit.
Using Viewshed Analysis, it looks like the furthest visible peak from Rainier might be Shudder Mountain in Canada at 226.5 miles. Interesting names here - Tremor Mtn, Shudder Mtnn, Quiver Pk, and The Ripsaw.
Cool names indeed. There is also Fury, Terror, Despair, Phantom and Damnation on the US side in the North Cascades to name a few. Don't fret though, there is also a Triumph!
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Re: Where can you see the most 14ers from?

Post by Scott P »

espressoself wrote: Tue Mar 23, 2021 4:02 pmNow I want to know what the furthest visible point is from the top of a 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.

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?

I believe in the US Denali has the longest line of site in the United States. In the lower 48 Rainier does and you can see both north and south for 200+ miles meaning you can see a combined 400+ miles. Kings Peak in Utah had the second longest combined line of site I could find in the lower 48 since from Kings Peak's summit you can see all the way from Gannet Peak in northern Wyoming to Mount Peale near Moab. Grand Teton and Mt Shasta had really long line of sites too, but I don't remember what they are.

Still some of the Alaska line of sites put the lower 48 to shame. Denali, Foraker, and Hunter are not only visible from Mount Sanford, but easy to distinguish from there. That's 240 miles.

Outside Alaska and the Cascades, Mauna Kea has a long line of sight as well since you can see Oahu from Mauna Kea which is 200 or more miles.
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Re: Where can you see the most 14ers from?

Post by Scott P »

Chicago Transplant wrote: Tue Mar 23, 2021 6:12 pmThere is also Fury, Terror, Despair,
Mount Terror, Mount Fury, Luna(tic) Peak, Mount Challenger, The Barrier, Mount Despair, and Easy Peak are all right near each other.

I wonder which one is the friendliest peak to ascend?
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Re: Where can you see the most 14ers from?

Post by bdloftin77 »

Scott P wrote: Tue Mar 23, 2021 6:29 pm 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.
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