Colorado LiDAR Findings

[bdloftin77]

Looking forward to hearing your results! I agree, they both looked viable. I was so uncertain where the true summit was that I tagged both when I was there in 2010. I remember my hiking partners thinking I was wasting my time and waiting for me at the north summit while I tagged the southern point. I'd really love to go back 12 years later and say "I told you so".

After looking at LiDAR, the high point is definitely the rock outcrop just south of the lookout cabin. The rock to the NW of the cabin is half a foot lower, and the southern contour points are several feet lower.

9620 is ranked! High point is the NE rock. I submitted these to John.

[KentonB]

Looking forward to hearing your results! I agree, they both looked viable. I was so uncertain where the true summit was that I tagged both when I was there in 2010. I remember my hiking partners thinking I was wasting my time and waiting for me at the north summit while I tagged the southern point. I'd really love to go back 12 years later and say "I told you so".

After looking at LiDAR, the high point is definitely the rock outcrop just south of the lookout cabin. The rock to the NW of the cabin is half a foot lower, and the southern contour points are several feet lower.

9620 is ranked! High point is the NE rock. I submitted these to John.

Figured that might be the case with The Horns, but good to have confirmation. Also good to know I didn't lose a ranked peak!

I may be the only person on 14ers.com that appreciates these obscure El Paso county assessments, but I really appreciate it!

[bdloftin77]

Figured that might be the case with The Horns, but good to have confirmation. Also good to know I didn't lose a ranked peak!

I may be the only person on 14ers.com that appreciates these obscure El Paso county assessments, but I really appreciate it!

I’m glad someone does at least! El Paso and Teller peaks are in my home territory and are like old friends, that’s why I couldn’t resist going through them all.

[supranihilest]

Was anything found to be different for "V 9" and its western summit? I wanted to make sure that didn't get lost in the discussion.

Thanks for checking! I remembered a bit ago that I hadn’t responded to that part. The current LoJ summit is current, and higher than the western summit by more than 5 feet. I submitted the actual result along with a few other peaks to John recently, should be up soon.

Thanks for checking, Ben! And thanks for not making me climb "V 9" again, it sucks.

lcmp (is that a capital I as in Internet Control Message Protocol or lowercase L?), thanks for the additional information and photos! Sheep is definitely more of a standalone peak from the Lizard Head Pass side than from the north. Always nice to have more context!

[Chicago Transplant]

I don't know why I didn't think of it sooner, but has anyone looked at Bartlett? Seeing as the top has been mined out, curious where and at what elevation the top actually is these days. Of course it changes over time so who knows how long that information will actually be accurate? Other mined peaks like Red near the Urad Mine would be interesting too.

[bdloftin77]

I don't know why I didn't think of it sooner, but has anyone looked at Bartlett? Seeing as the top has been mined out, curious where and at what elevation the top actually is these days. Of course it changes over time so who knows how long that information will actually be accurate? Other mined peaks like Red near the Urad Mine would be interesting too.

Yep! (for Bartlett) Check out page 6, a few posts from the bottom. Unfortunately the lidar flight was from 2019, so no super recent coverage.

[Chicago Transplant]

I don't know why I didn't think of it sooner, but has anyone looked at Bartlett? Seeing as the top has been mined out, curious where and at what elevation the top actually is these days. Of course it changes over time so who knows how long that information will actually be accurate? Other mined peaks like Red near the Urad Mine would be interesting too.

Yep! (for Bartlett) Check out page 6, a few posts from the bottom. Unfortunately the lidar flight was from 2019, so no super recent coverage.

Cool, thanks! I missed that in the Fortress conversation on that page.

[bdloftin77]

I've been thinking that creating the automated process/script/workflow you mentioned above would be a great research project.

Even if it only involves lidar-derived DEMs (instead of LAS/LAZ tiles), it sounds like John has expressed some interest in eventually automating the summit/saddle finding process. Anything that's close would likely be checked by hand.

If anyone is interested in this, let us know. Haven't heard back from Jed yet.

[bdloftin77]

Heard back from Jed. I'll let you know if we're able to get a good automated method down.

[Boggy B]

I didn't know this either. It makes sense for ranked peaks. If the benchmark location isn't ranked but a nearby higher point is, then the benchmark location simply isn't ranked. It's a matter of pure numbers. It obviously gets weird when things are unranked. It sounds like for unranked peaks literally any arbitrary point could be the "peak." Elevation doesn't matter. I personally disagree, but I do see the logic.

I think in the tower in question's case, it's more about what was intended to be Sheep Mountain when this feature was named? If the BM is the intent, then the tower is irrelevant without a name as it is still not ranked. Given that there are so many unnamed unranked towers all over the state, not including it seems consistent to me if the BM is considered the named point. If Sheep was intended to be the entire massif, it could be the tower that is the top, especially given that the saddle with San Miguel is actually east of it. That may be the most compelling reason to call the tower the summit?

Yep. From The Nub (which I haven't visited), Sheep probably looks insignificant. And from Lake point, The Nub looks insignificant. And from San Miguel, Lake Point looks insignificant. So The Nub is of low significance and Sheep is even less so except that it's named because the grassy slopes on its W-SW flanks once served as high-altitude pasture. Those slopes feature in the photo posted above, and most likely such a view is what met the namers' gaze.

There are probably lots of examples of this.
Why isn't Mt Cosgriff actually "South Elbert", or even the unsurveyed point to the NW?
I found Thunder Mountain to be lower than the point to its NW, which is lower than pt 13140, which is yet lower than other points to the N on the connecting ridge to Greylock.
These peaks are all on the ends of their respective ridges, and so were probably named from a perspective from which adjoining higher points were obscured by the named one.

[bdloftin77]

Centennials:

Between Ryan, Adam, and me, most of the Centennials have been analyzed. I haven't yet looked at a lot of summit pictures/videos, though I know Ryan and Adam have. Any summit cairns we avoided are mentioned in the notes. Longs and Meeker won't be available for download til the late summer or fall (along with the rest of the northern/western Colorado gap). Sometime in the next few weeks I'm still wanting to do a field check on one of Pikes Peak's high point candidates, as construction might have disturbed this area. If any tweaks are made to the Centennial elevations, (most likely due to cairns being discovered/omitted), I'll make a note in this thread.


County summits:

Jefferson's soft-ranked peaks have been completed. Newly ranked peaks are Ralston Buttes, Black Hawk Mountain, "Stanley Mountain," 8232, and "Tick Dome." Stanley is barely ranked, and the saddle is not obvious due to a road rise. If this one goes away, it's because John's taken a look at the saddle and determined it was higher than otherwise.

In Teller county, Black Mountain was discovered to be 16 feet higher than Green Mountain. Both switched saddles and their ranked status. Sheep Rock was also determined to be a ranked summit.

Pueblo county's soft-ranks have been completed. Little Red Butte is the only newly ranked summit.

Las Animas' soft-ranks have been completed. It gained 8860 as a newly ranked peak.

Costilla county's soft-ranks have been completed and no more were found.

Boulder county has been analyzed up to the coverage drop. New peaks include Lookout Mountain, Big John Mountain, "Bathtub Bump," and "Mount Mezzo." We'll have to wait til later this year for 12277, "Ooh La La," and Eagles Beak.


Almost soft-ranked peaks:

Several years ago, Joe Grim used a program to find as many P240+ Colorado peaks as possible. Right now John's trimming this down to peaks that aren't yet in LoJ. There might be some hiding surprises.

[Imcp]

lcmp (is that a capital I as in Internet Control Message Protocol or lowercase L?), thanks for the additional information and photos! Sheep is definitely more of a standalone peak from the Lizard Head Pass side than from the north. Always nice to have more context!

Hah! It is a capital I. My first name is Isaac and my last name starts with McP so that's how I came up with my ultra creative username.