How many peaks?
How many mountain peaks does the AT hit?
christ! hundreds
They don't call them PUDS for nothing!!!
Summits? Shoulders? Hills? How would you define peaks? Every named peak? Every high point of a hog backed ridge? Every little part of a mountain you go up to reach a ridge to another hill/mountain?
I'm not really a hiker, I just play one on White Blaze.
All of them. . .Originally Posted by dart7383
Tray alone has three summits actually.
Ok, how many notches, gaps, knees, and valleys?
The trail was here before we arrived, and it will still be here when we are gone...enjoy it now, and preserve it for others that come after us
fourteen
Forty two.
I'm not really a hiker, I just play one on White Blaze.
I wussn't peakin
If you find yourself in a fair fight; your tactics suck.
Yeah they do. Otherwise it would be a longer green tunnel.
how many peaks??
Probably thousands. The trail goes over every peak or at least it seems like it does. It even goes over peaks that aren't peaks but sure feel like peaks when you climb over them.
Much of the trail is Puds (pointless ups and downs). Each PUD could be considered a peak I suppose.
Somewhere someday some poor sap with nothing better to do will probably try and figure out the answer to this question. When that happens, I hope he or she posts the answer here on whiteblaze!
Course, who is gonna question this person? not me!
David
Could probably do it with google earth and get close if you wanted to spend a lot of useless time.
YOu know you can hold down the shift key and use the mouse wheel to look at everything sideways and 3D on GE.
Then you can try to decide what constitutes a peak. (every bump probably feels like a peak to some, others don't even notice it)
Don't let your fears stand in the way of your dreams
Back in '02, Blaze counted every NOBO white blaze (over 80,000). It's just a matter of time until someone counts every peak.
In the US, the accepted standard for a "peak" is a 300' drop from every point in a 1/2 mile radius, I think. In Europe, it's something like a 100 meter drop over 500 meters. In Colorado, a couple of the vaunted 54 "fourteeners" (peaks over 14,000' high) don't meet either criterion yet they're still famous peaks (like North Maroon Peak, doesn't even come close but it's the most photographed peak in North America if not the world). So it's probably going to be impossible to even agree on what's a peak on the AT, much less count them.
"Throw a loaf of bread and a pound of tea in an old sack and jump over the back fence." John Muir on expedition planning
Im thinking that the real question was probably intented to be more like the following....
How many high point peaks does the AT hit. Here is that list (counting peaks that are a short hike from the AT).
Georgia - Brasstown Bald (12 miles off side trail)
Tennessee - Cllingman's Dome - on trail
Virginia - Mt Rogers (.2 off side trail)
New Jersey - High Point - on trail
Massachusetts - Mt Graylock - on trial
New Hampshire - Mt Washington - (.5 off side trail)
Maine - Mt Katadin - on trail
Other high points that are within a half day drive of the trail are as follows:
North Carolina - Mt Mitchell about 1-2 hr drive from Hot Springs/Erwin/Ashville/Elk Park/Hampton area
WV, Penn, MD - about 2 hrs northwest of Harpers Ferry, can all be summitted in a single day
NY - 2-3 hr drive west from Bennington VT
VT - 2 hr drive north from Sherburn Pass
CT?? - Id have to research exactly where this one is at, but it cant be far from the trail. The whole state is only 3 hrs drive end to end, and the mountainous area is on the west boarder, where the trail is.
Now, i've heard this argument before when a friend told me it was Mt. Chocura in NH. Since then, i've heard: Mt Fuji (which i believe to probably be the one), the Matterhorn, Kilimanjaro, Everest (highly doubtful as you must walk to at least 12,000' to even see it unless it's from an airplane), Whitney, Baker, Grand Teton, and now this North Maroon peak which, sorry to say, I've never heard of.
But, i'm not saying you are wrong Garlic. I think it's another one of those impossible questions. Sort of like the one from the OP in this thread.
Don't let your fears stand in the way of your dreams
Pointless ups and downs compared to what? It's a mountain trail, it needs to go over mountains to get from GA to ME.
Thousands is probably way off. That would be one every mile. In PA you're lucky to get one every day. My WAG would be about 400.
I was thinking the summit of Mt Washington was on the AT.
it most certainly is
That's OK, I'm sure I exaggerated a bit when I said it was the most photographed in North America! The Tetons could be the winner, for sure. But here is it, it may look familiar. The apparent high summit on the right (North Maroon) is only the end point of a ridge off the actual peak to the left (South Maroon). Together, they're known as the Maroon Bells, near Aspen. It's so popular the USFS runs a shuttle bus to the photo point.
"Throw a loaf of bread and a pound of tea in an old sack and jump over the back fence." John Muir on expedition planning
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