As of this evening, I've processed 31 peaks in the northern Wind River Range (full table of results at end). I found 3 new 12ers: Nebraska Point with 311 ft. of prominence, U.N. Point 12580 with 330 ft. of prominence, and Bondage Peak with 310 ft. of prominence.
Most notably, I found a new ranked Wyoming 13er! It's Miriam Peak, with 315 ft. of prominence!
The topo maps seem to have missed the 120 ft. contour on this peak, although the saddle elevation at Bonney Pass was pretty close to accurate. The highest return was 13,136 ft., and there were many other points very close to this. That's 56 ft. higher than the highest closed contour! I measured the col at 12,821 ft., previously 12,824 ft. It's awesome to add this peak to the list, since not only is it in a cool, central location (it will finally force me to climb Bonney Pass), but the woman it's named for, Miriam Underhill, was a pioneering female climber who made the first ascent of this peak along with her husband Robert Underhill in 1939. As of now, this upgrade makes Teresa Gergen the only known finisher of the new Wyoming 13er list (older records should still be honored, and it's individual choice whether to re-finish the list).
In terms of the 13er list, the addition of Miriam Peak seems to be the only big change. The only previously soft-ranked 13er, Pedestal Peak, has 292 ft. of prominence by my count, which is sadly not quite enough to make it ranked (though the 292 ft. is rather closer than expected based on the prevailing opinion).
There were also a few peaks which were originally ranked because of the type of interpolation used by Lists of John and could theoretically have been just shy of 300 ft., but they remain ranked: Spearhead Pinnacle went from 320 ft. of prominence to 332 ft., and U.N. Point 13180 (between Flagstone and Bastion) went from 320 ft. of prominence to 312 ft. I can also confirm that Spearhead is about 9 ft. taller than Forked Tongue, as was initially determined by Jim Rickard in 2010 with a sight level. The Sphinx, which was the least-prominent of the ranked 13ers, went from 318 ft. of prominence to 328 ft., and the unnamed peak between Flagstone and Bastion is now the least-prominent 13er.
I always suspected that the summit of Knife Point Mountain was substantially taller than the 13,001 ft. reported on the map, and indeed, the sharp summit obelisk extends to about 13,038 ft., making Knife Point move up considerably in the 13er rankings (pending final elevations for the remaining peaks).
The other elevation ambiguity has been the true summit of the Twin Peaks: on maps, the East Twin has a spot elevation of 13,185 ft. and the West Twin has a 13,160 ft. closed contour, but sight leveling and GPS measurements have revealed that the sharp summit of the West Twin is very close to the height of the East Twin. With the LiDAR data, I get elevations of 13,216 ft. for the East Twin and 13,214 ft. for the West Twin--close enough that I'm not personally comfortable declaring the East Twin to be higher. LiDAR points represent a sort of spatial average over the spot size (the laser beam spreads due to the distance of the airplane above the ground), and on a single sharp-topped boulder like the summit of the West Twin, it's unclear whether the reported elevation is really the highest point. Thus, for now, I encourage climbers to continue tagging both summits of the Twin Peaks.
More to come...
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