West Eolus dGPS Survey

[josephnephi]

Earlier this month, Ben Loftin and I measured the summit and saddle of West Eolus with one of Eric Gilbertson's DA2 antennas. LiDAR found that it had 299.4751 feet of prominence. Given LiDAR is usually accurate to ±1.7, this left a significant chance that LiDAR had missed to sharp summit and West Eolus was actually ranked. We recorded data on the summit for 2 hours, and recorded data at the saddle for 3. Both the summit and saddle were very unambiguous.

BothSummit.jpeg

We found West Eolus to have 299.931±0.178 feet of prominence when post processing with Trimble-RTX (OPUS: 299.826±0.210, CSRS-PPP: 299.887±0.202). This means that there is a 77.6% chance that West Eolus is unranked. This falls short of the 95% confidence required to definitively declare the peak's status, so West Eolus remains soft ranked! . LiDAR appears to have missed ~10.5" on the summit, but also missed 5" on the saddle.

For more details, analysis, and the trip report (rappels in the dark!) you can find the whole report here: https://www.14ers.com/php14ers/triprepo ... trip=23508

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WestEolusDist.PNG

[Eli Boardman]

You're telling me you didn't bring a trowel?!

[supranihilest]

You're telling me you didn't bring a trowel?!

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[goingup]

Earlier this month, Ben Loftin and I measured the summit and saddle of West Eolus with one of Eric Gilbertson's DA2 antennas. LiDAR found that it had 299.4751 feet of prominence. Given LiDAR is usually accurate to ±1.7, this left a significant chance that LiDAR had missed to sharp summit and West Eolus was actually ranked. We recorded data on the summit for 2 hours, and recorded data at the saddle for 3. Both the summit and saddle were very unambiguous.


BothSummit.jpeg



We found West Eolus to have 299.931±0.178 feet of prominence when post processing with Trimble-RTX (OPUS: 299.826±0.210, CSRS-PPP: 299.887±0.202). This means that there is a 77.6% chance that West Eolus is unranked. This falls short of the 95% confidence required to definitively declare the peak's status, so West Eolus remains soft ranked! . LiDAR appears to have missed ~10.5" on the summit, but also missed 5" on the saddle.

For more details, analysis, and the trip report (rappels in the dark!) you can find the whole report here: https://www.14ers.com/php14ers/triprepo ... trip=23508


image.jpg
WestEolusDist.PNG

As a science and engineering nerd myself, this is just so cool. I did not realize how this was really done. I just blindly follow the mountain bible of List of John. So I get the statistics behind why it is not ranked. However, the chaos demon in me says, rank it and cause a MAJOR RUCKUS!

[Boggy B]

Huh. I guess we shouldn't have accidentally knocked off the top 3 inches when we went up there.

[bdloftin77]

Huh. I guess we shouldn't have accidentally knocked off the top 3 inches when we went up there.

Boggy killed West Eolus! In all seriousness, it’s very crumbly and I didn’t want to stand on the very top - only touched it.

[Jim Davies]

So, it rounds to 300', right?

[astranko]

This is the funniest possible outcome.

The way I see it: if you truly want to make sure your list is complete, you must climb W. Eolus.

However, it also probably doesn't matter.

[josephnephi]

This is the funniest possible outcome.

100% agree

[kyrawhitworth]

Thank you for doing all of this work and I enjoyed reading the trip report. In conclusion, the results are inconclusive!

The photos you included are truly epic. Someday I swear my to-do list will get shorter, but not today!

[jkirk]

This is the funniest possible outcome.

100% agree

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...I see what you did there