Colorado LiDAR Findings

[RadioJay]

Haven’t seen anything about South Elbert in this thread so I’ll ask, has anyone revisited the 300’ rule for South Elbert? Contour lines show somewhat less than 300’ to the saddle (about 254’) but it sure seemed like more than 300’ last time I did it. Maybe I was just tired.

[Chicago Transplant]

I was on that trip, that picture was coming off the NE ridge in an attempt to traverse high to Precipice. I may have some other pictures at home, the block in question would be to the west of the currently accepted summit.

I was on that trip, that picture was coming off the NE ridge in an attempt to traverse high to Precipice. I may have some other pictures at home, the block in question would be to the west of the currently accepted summit.

Yep, the block is somewhere in the northwest quadrant when standing on the summit. The photo was taken north of the summit looking roughly south, so the block is about west-northwest of the summit.

Thanks, guys! That'll be helpful. There's at least a chance lidar would pick up the top of the ridge. Might miss some parts as well though, if it's similar to W Eolus.

Here a couple of more pictures, one of the block in question from standing on the summit, and another of the ridiculously sketchy looking notch one would have to traverse through to ascend the western summit. Left side of the gap is the sketchy alternate summit candidate that we all hope is lower, "true" summit area is to the right and looks higher from this angle. You would have to ascend a sketchy looking conglomerate wall to an exposed ridge with boulders glued on with volcanic mud. The narrowness is not clear in the summit photo, but the boulders are. I haven't been up there in 9 years, so I can't remember how close the two felt in elevation.

21-FSummit03-West.JPG (133.11 KiB) Viewed 2114 times

33-FortressSummitGap01.JPG (233.42 KiB) Viewed 2114 times

[supranihilest]

I was on that trip, that picture was coming off the NE ridge in an attempt to traverse high to Precipice. I may have some other pictures at home, the block in question would be to the west of the currently accepted summit.

Yep, the block is somewhere in the northwest quadrant when standing on the summit. The photo was taken north of the summit looking roughly south, so the block is about west-northwest of the summit.

Thanks, guys! That'll be helpful. There's at least a chance lidar would pick up the top of the ridge. Might miss some parts as well though, if it's similar to W Eolus.

Here a couple of more pictures, one of the block in question from standing on the summit, and another of the ridiculously sketchy looking notch one would have to traverse through to ascend the western summit. Left side of the gap is the sketchy alternate summit candidate that we all hope is lower, "true" summit area is to the right and looks higher from this angle. You would have to ascend a sketchy looking conglomerate wall to an exposed ridge with boulders glued on with volcanic mud. The narrowness is not clear in the summit photo, but the boulders are. I haven't been up there in 9 years, so I can't remember how close the two felt in elevation.


21-FSummit03-West.JPG

33-FortressSummitGap01.JPG

Thanks for the extra pics, Mike. Let's hope that the current summit remains the summit, that ridge looks ludicrously sketchy and borderline suicidal. Quick note since none of the pics so far show the climb down into the notch, but I'm 99% sure that the notch to the western summit isn't terribly deep, a few body lengths down and then up the wall shown in Mike's second photo. The rock is obviously garbage and the exposure is deadly, but my point is that it's not a several-hundred-foot-tall free standing tower. Aren't all 13er climbers glad I brought this up?

[Monster5]

Y'all dramatic. It's just a little more time and effort and chest beating.

P1020176.JPG (166.25 KiB) Viewed 2082 times

[DArcyS]

Trying to make out the middle finger flipping peakbaggers off. Haven't found it yet, pretty sure it's there though. Maybe the ol' double-barreled salute?

Pre.JPG (166.21 KiB) Viewed 2076 times

[bdloftin77]

Some results:

El Paso and Teller county soft-ranks have been analyzed!

The two new ranked peaks in El Paso are Cascade Mountain (https://listsofjohn.com/peak/3720) and Goat Mountain (https://listsofjohn.com/peak/4710). The two new Teller peaks are Sentinel Point (https://listsofjohn.com/peak/1277) and The Crags (https://listsofjohn.com/peak/2479).

Thanks Ben! It looks like I made the right call climbing Cascade, Goat, and Sentinel a few years back! I'll have to bring a ladder to get The Crags. Out of curiosity, do you know which of the 3 "bumps" on Goat Mountain is the highest? I did all 3 to make sure, but I've always wondered. I'm a little disappointed that Point 9500 wasn't ranked. I've already completed the grid on that one.

Also, I noticed for 8100 (unranked El Paso peak), the Lidar prominence is 267'... which is exactly what I calculated using GPS in my LoJ Trip Report... Woo Hoo! Called it back in 2012!

Good call! Though I finished the El Paso interpolated-ranked summits in 2018, I only just completed the ranked ones this summer (on Goat Mountain, though my last soft-ranked was Grey Rock). I'm glad Sentinel is ranked. It definitely looks like a distinct mountain, and has great views to the west. The Crags fortunately isn't too far of a trek to even just scout it out and look at possible routes. We didn't look at the west side at all (though it's probably pretty steep). We ascended the east side.

If you go to John's lidar page, click on the underlined "Lidar Elevation" and "Lidar Saddle" links to view the locations on the map, as well as the centered coordinates.
https://listsofjohn.com/lidar/lidar.php

[Salient]

Is it possible to see LiDAR maps outside of the United States?

[SnowAlien]

Nice! And Buckskin is a much better ski from the western summit.

I concur. Centennial skiers skied the NW couloir dropping into Arkansas/Tweto drainage. I skied that line too in a big snow year (2019) and distinctly remember slogging to the standard summit of Buckskin and back, thinking it was quite an elevation gain (looks like an extra 600+ ft RT). Was pretty time consuming and I was stressing out. Thankfully as the line is NW facing, delayed start to ski didn't really matter. I have a TR on Buckskin ski here.

[bdloftin77]

Ben, would you mind also checking the true summit of "Fortress Peak"?

I took a look at the lidar data from The National Map. Unfortunately, there's a big "no data" area where that ridge is. However, near the very end of the ridge, it looks like it caught a summit at 38.0981, -107.5311 at 13,241.5'. This area is definitely lower than the main summit area where you guys were. If you think this spot that the lidar caught was the highest point on the ridge, then you guys indeed made it to the highest point.

On the main summit area, lidar shows the highest point at 13,246' at 38.09783, -107.53059.

Fortress with washed out ridge

Fortress.png (655.75 KiB) Viewed 1753 times

[bdloftin77]

Unfortunately, the most recent lidar for Bartlett from TNM is from Sept/Oct 2019, so it isn't much help. It did show an interesting profile.

If LoJ's note is correct and the summit was mined flat at 13,380' (4/2020), then the lidar data is definitely out-of-date.

I did catch the saddle at 12,893'. So when it's mined to below 13,193', it'll no longer be ranked.

The light blue 13,243' area below is almost completely flat.

Bartlett Late Summer 2019

Bartlett 2019.png (597.86 KiB) Viewed 1745 times

[bdloftin77]

I found the high point of Huerfanito to be the eastern tower at 37.58476,-105.46391, at 13,083'.

The Douglas county soft-ranks have been analyzed! Only Eagle Mountain (https://listsofjohn.com/peak/5704) was found to be ranked. John updated the four former soft-ranked peak's peak pages as a test run. He'll wait on updating the El Paso and Teller peak pages til the 10ers through 12ers have been analyzed, but the results do show up on his lidar page.

Huerfano county is also complete. 13,555 (https://listsofjohn.com/peak/268) and 9156 (https://listsofjohn.com/peak/3974) are ranked.

[supranihilest]

Unfortunately, the most recent lidar for Bartlett from TNM is from Sept/Oct 2019, so it isn't much help. It did show an interesting profile.

If LoJ's note is correct and the summit was mined flat at 13,380' (4/2020), then the lidar data is definitely out-of-date.

I did catch the saddle at 12,893'. So when it's mined to below 13,193', it'll no longer be ranked.

The light blue 13,243' area below is almost completely flat.

Bartlett 2019.png

This is consistent with my trip report. The northwest high point is the large pile of mining debris and the southeast 13,344' point is the nasty tower in the TR. The previous "razor fang" that old schoolers are familiar with is officially gone. For those hoping to wait out the mine until Bartlett becomes unranked you might be waiting a long time - the more they mine down the wider the summit plateau becomes and the longer it takes them to continue mining down. I don't know what their rate of mountaintop removal is but I wouldn't hold my breath.

Ben, would you mind also checking the true summit of "Fortress Peak"?

I took a look at the lidar data from The National Map. Unfortunately, there's a big "no data" area where that ridge is. However, near the very end of the ridge, it looks like it caught a summit at 38.0981, -107.5311 at 13,241.5'. This area is definitely lower than the main summit area where you guys were. If you think this spot that the lidar caught was the highest point on the ridge, then you guys indeed made it to the highest point.

On the main summit area, lidar shows the highest point at 13,246' at 38.09783, -107.53059.

Fortress.png

Do you mind explaining what we're looking at on this one? What's the scale (to help understand where the block might be in relation to the summit, and the size of the features shown)? Which of the red dots is the summit as found by your analysis (or are those all the same elevation), and where's the summit as previously known? Do those match? Is the "no data" area that large white trapezoid shaped area northwest/up and left of the summit/main cluster? Thanks for doing this work, Ben!