"Sunlight Spire" LiDAR Elevation

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Re: "Sunlight Spire" LiDAR Elevation

Post by angry »

Eli Watson wrote: Sun Oct 31, 2021 3:19 pm
d_baker wrote: Sun Oct 31, 2021 6:43 am
Eli Watson wrote: Sat Oct 30, 2021 8:59 pm So am I as cool as the other Eli and TakeMeToYourSummit or not?
What does that even mean? As it relates to this thread.
I've summited 73/74 of the "List of 74" Colorado 14ers as listed on this site, including the Unranked + Unnamed summits. The only one I'm missing is "Sunlight Spire".
Eli Boardman climbed the list of 74 at the age of 17 with a solo summit of the spire so that'd be a hard no from me dawg. I think he is THE coolest.
https://www.14ers.com/php14ers/triprepo ... trip=18872
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Re: "Sunlight Spire" LiDAR Elevation

Post by Boggy B »

DArcyS wrote: Sun Oct 31, 2021 11:36 am I was wondering where West Eolus would come out, and I see it's at 299', just missing out.
Oh, interesting. Bets on whether LiDAR picked up the highpoint (behind Kylie in below photo)?
weolus.jpg
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Re: "Sunlight Spire" LiDAR Elevation

Post by Eli Watson »

angry wrote: Sun Oct 31, 2021 6:15 pm Eli Boardman climbed the list of 74 at the age of 17 with a solo summit of the spire so that'd be a hard no from me dawg. I think he is THE coolest.
https://www.14ers.com/php14ers/triprepo ... trip=18872
I'm being cheeky. I'll admit that eliminating "Sunlight Spire" as a 14er by any criteria is a pretty unceremonious and lackluster way to find out I've summited all of Colorado's 14,000' highpoints.

I don't know what the future holds for the Unranked + Unnamed summit list of Colorado 14ers, but I hope the List of 74 lives on to include one technical summit for completion at minimum. "Sunlight Spire" is still a goal of mine, and I hope to stand on top of it some day and accomplish my personal goal. I like the List of 74 because it forced me to actually think beyond following an established trail and do some research on how to get to the top of bumps on a hill like "S Wilson" and "NE Crestone".
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Re: "Sunlight Spire" LiDAR Elevation

Post by Eli Boardman »

Eli Watson wrote: Sat Oct 30, 2021 8:59 pm So am I as cool as the other Eli and TakeMeToYourSummit or not?
You're far cooler, the cactus bloom really goes a long way in the coolness department :-D

__

So this thread is telling me that I learned trad climbing for nothing. Because truth be told, the only reason I learned trad climbing was to get up the ol' spire. I guess I can say, "back in my day, we had an extra 14er..." :lol:
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Re: "Sunlight Spire" LiDAR Elevation

Post by FireOnTheMountain »

Eli Boardman wrote: Mon Nov 01, 2021 1:17 pmBecause truth be told, the only reason I learned trad climbing was to get up the ol' spire.
You learned trad climbing cause its cool af =P~
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Re: "Sunlight Spire" LiDAR Elevation

Post by bdloftin77 »

Boggy B wrote: Sun Oct 31, 2021 7:30 pm Bets on whether LiDAR picked up the highpoint (behind Kylie in below photo)?
weolus.jpg
Hey Boggy B,

Is the highpoint behind/covered by her straightened leg (really close to the cliff between you and her), or is it further behind her, more in the center of that rock formation?

What are your thoughts about where the high point might be in this picture relative to the labeled elevations? If the high point is directly behind her and right on the edge of the cliff she's sitting on, that might be the 13,732.45 point picked up by lidar. If it's closer to the middle, it might be the 13,732.55 point picked up by lidar.

The highest point I found in the lidar data was the 13,732.55 point.

If you think the high point is on the eastern part of that formation, it might have been missed by lidar. If you think it's more toward the center, then lidar might have picked it up.

I'm not sure exactly where the photographer was standing, but since you were there, you might be able to determine better where everything is situated in the below pictures.
West Eolus LiDAR Returns
West Eolus LiDAR Returns
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Re: "Sunlight Spire" LiDAR Elevation

Post by Chicago Transplant »

bdloftin77 wrote: Thu Nov 04, 2021 2:49 pm The highest point I found in the lidar data was the 13,732.55 point.
FYI Lists of John shows it at 13,733 which seems to indicate he used that high point and rounded it up to the next whole number to get his determination of 299' of prominence.
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Re: "Sunlight Spire" LiDAR Elevation

Post by bdloftin77 »

Chicago Transplant wrote: Thu Nov 04, 2021 3:24 pm
bdloftin77 wrote: Thu Nov 04, 2021 2:49 pm The highest point I found in the lidar data was the 13,732.55 point.
FYI Lists of John shows it at 13,733 which seems to indicate he used that high point and rounded it up to the next whole number to get his determination of 299' of prominence.
Yeah. My saddle was at a similar elevation to his, at 13,433.08 ft. That would give it 299.47' of prominence. If Boggy B thinks the high point is at a similar location to the high point I found, then maybe lidar caught it after all. If his high point is on the east end of that formation near the cliff Kylie was sitting on, then lidar probably didn't pick up the high point > the high point is actually greater than 13,732.55' > the prominence would at least round up to if not exceeding 300' > West Eolus would very likely be ranked.

Even if the highest returned lidar elevation on W Eolus happened to be near the actual HP - with only a foot of wiggle room, there's a chance that the actual high point could have been missed, thus being several inches higher and pushing W Eolus over the 300' mark.

With it being so close to having 300' of prominence (~0.5 ft), I would strongly consider climbing this one if I was pursuing the Colorado 13ers. That being said, unless someone lugs high quality survey equipment with at least sub-foot accuracy (preferably better) and surveys the summit and the saddle, it's unlikely that this peak would ever be proven to be a ranked summit. That being said, there is the possibility that even higher quality lidar is flown over this area, which might clear some things up.
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Re: "Sunlight Spire" LiDAR Elevation

Post by Tornadoman »

This is an interesting thread. Looking through the lists of Cents and Bis, I see that Lightning Pyramid has only 302' prominence. (13,722 summit; extrapolated 13,420 saddle). Curious what the data shows there? Is Lightning Pyramid indeed ranked?
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Re: "Sunlight Spire" LiDAR Elevation

Post by Scott P »

A big question is whether or not Bross is really ranked. I'm sure a lot of people would like to see that one knocked off the ranked list.

Bross' prominence ranges from 292-332 so there is a 20% chance that it really isn't ranked.
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Re: "Sunlight Spire" LiDAR Elevation

Post by Boggy B »

bdloftin77 wrote: Thu Nov 04, 2021 2:49 pm Is the highpoint behind/covered by her straightened leg (really close to the cliff between you and her), or is it further behind her, more in the center of that rock formation?

What are your thoughts about where the high point might be in this picture relative to the labeled elevations? If the high point is directly behind her and right on the edge of the cliff she's sitting on, that might be the 13,732.45 point picked up by lidar. If it's closer to the middle, it might be the 13,732.55 point picked up by lidar.

The highest point I found in the lidar data was the 13,732.55 point.

If you think the high point is on the eastern part of that formation, it might have been missed by lidar. If you think it's more toward the center, then lidar might have picked it up.

I'm not sure exactly where the photographer was standing, but since you were there, you might be able to determine better where everything is situated in the below pictures.
So to the naked eye the highpoint is fairly obvious at the center of the whole formation. See this photo:
Image

She's on that block, with the apex immediately behind her. I'm having a hard time placing it in your point cloud image, which seems to show two areas of higher terrain separated by a saddle/notch. If that's the only obvious dip in the ridge, then we were to the left (W) of that. From there, the ridge extends W, sloping downward gradually without any significant drops, as shown in this view looking W from the same position Kylie was in. The summit is the foreground block.
Image

There weren't any tall blocks behind (E of) us, so I'm wondering if the 13732.55 point is the 2nd block from foreground, which is about 6 feet away and at least a foot shorter.
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Re: "Sunlight Spire" LiDAR Elevation

Post by Boggy B »

On 2nd look, given your 45' figure for scale, your view is probably limited to the area designated in this photo from the N.
In this case your "saddle" is the shallow notch to the left (E) of the highpoint, and the 13732.03 point is just E of that.
If that's true, it would seem LiDAR missed the highest parts of those narrow summit blocks as the area to the E was at least several feet below them.
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