[pct-l] Mt. Whitney and the White Mountains

[campydog at verizon.net (Campy)]

Ref: "With the wonders of GPS, this isn't as true as it once was. A few 
years
ago an expedition left a GPS unit on top of Everest and returned the
following year to retrieve it. That way they got a year's worth of
measurements. I don't know if anybody has done the same with Mt. 
Whitney."

TAKE A HIKE, YOU DOUBTERS!

There are people living in Bishop who believe that nearby White Mountain 
is higher than Mt. Whitney. Mt. Whitney couldn't be as high 'cause it 
can't even be seen, being it's south and down around the bend from 
Bishop. Mt. Whitney had been fairly accurately surveyed earlier, and I 
remember its elevation was 14,496 feet (rounded off). But in May-June 
1996 Robert Nielsen and some other surveying engineering students at CA 
State University at Fresno used modern GPS equipment to accurately 
measure the elevations of four of California's highest summits. (I'm 
just learning about this now! From "Go tell it on the mountain: Whitney 
is tallest", Reno Gazette-Journal, 23 Nov 2003.) Well, among the White 
Mtn. and Whitney surveys there were also Mt. Williamson and North 
Palisade, and an unexpected result came out of the measurements: Mt. 
Whitney is difinitely the highest, and gained four feet - it now stands 
at (rounded off) 14,450 feet. Mt. Williamson is 14,382.3 feet high and 
North Palisade is 14,255.9 feet high. But White Mountain is 14,243.2 
feet high, and has grown a foot since my last climb, according to my 
memory of its survey disk. The interesting things is that North Pal has 
displaced White Mountain as the third highest in California, since it 
grew a whopping 15 or 20 feet! And now White Mountain has slipped to the 
22nd highest mountain in the lower 48 states. No wonder this info hasn't 
been seen in print in the local Inyo Register newspaper!
==^================
Campy
Central California Trail Coordinator
"Home of the High Sierra Trail Gorillas"
Pacific Crest Trail Association
Bishop CA Tel.: 760-872-2338
Email: tap "Reply"

See photos from our recent High Sierra trail project:
http://www.trailprojects.com/dif_log030920.html

"Time spent doing trail work shall not be deducted from your life!"