We really don't have that much...

[Jim]

... terrain in Arizona over 10,000 feet, do we? Sure, we have lots of desert, and you don't have to do much more than drive to a neighboring state to find additional area over 10,000', but within our boundaries, we only have a handful of places that exceed 10,000. The Peaks, Kendrick, Escudilla, the Baldy Volcano, and the Pinalenos are it, aren't they? Am I leaving anything out? Living around Flag, with the easy access to the Peaks, gives one a false sense of the state. Until one starts looking for places around Arizona that are over 10,000.

[sbkelley]

Now I have been to Colorado and despite all of it's followers I find AZ and CA more exciting as there seems to be more prominence

I agree - I started my hiking "career" in CO and did all the 14ers a few years back. Love them, and they're no doubt beautiful, but Arizona offers an awful lot more variety. Most of the 14ers, as you say, aren't terribly difficult so long as you're in shape and reasonably prepared and aware of your surroundings. The ability to go from Sonoran desert to alpine forest in the same trek is a pretty unique and special feature about this state. 'Tis all opinion, though.

[azbackpackr]

I like the dry. Saying that, I love the riparian areas. They are so sweet in Arizona. You don't take a riparian area, a lake, creek or river for granted, or a little spring. You appreciate them. And the contrast along creeks, where you have sycamores and cottonwoods with their feet in the water, while upslope you have dry scrub and cactus--I like that contrast.

[PLC92084]

I LOVE the variety available in AZ!! The contrasts, as Liz points out, are truly unique... CA has a little of this but nothing like AZ...

[Jim]

nevertheless I still would have expected a higher percentage
apparently I don't know Alaska very well

Now I have been to Colorado and despite all of it's followers I find AZ and CA more exciting as there seems to be more prominence. Perhaps CO holds the medal for overall prominence. However there sure seem to be a lot of 14'ers you can almost drive up or not hike very far.

I agree completely. I know in the past that some (like you) have suggested I move to CO, but I find CO boring. The people who are 14er obsessed (newbs) are annoying to me, and as you say, most of the higher peaks are not very rugged. In fact, out side of a few, they really are not very rugged. There are plenty of more interesting 13ers in CO that are more rugged and interesting, but they don't get the attention they deserve because they aren't over some arbitrary yet magical 14,000' mark. I also agree about our state, and really agree about CA being more interesting. There are incredible 10,000' peaks in parts of the Sierra that are far more rugged and difficult than most 14ers. Plus, you have no storms to deal with, for the most part.

The Colorado peaks are generally not very prominent, since they typically have a high "saddle" with the next highest peak. Whitney in CA is the 48's most prominent, and Elbert is the second most prominent because it's "saddle" is the lowest point between it and Whitney. So, the next most prominent peak in CO is only as prominent as it's lowest "saddle" between it and Elbert, and so on. Blanca is probably the next most prominent. If you only count from the surrounding terrain, such as with Blanca over the San Luis Valley, CO still usually has less than AZ and CA, for most peaks. Very few can look down over 10,000' as you can on San Jacinto or the higher Sierra peaks over the Owens Valley. In CO, most have around 3 to 4000' tops, whereas on Humphrey you can see from 5000' to 8000' down (Cameron and the Litttle Colorado River Valley). Just in the "low" Pusch Ridge of the Catalinas, you can see close to 5,000' down. I think that is really impressive. Course, in the west, we're really spoiled by all of this. Bigload has to deal with the "impressive" views he gets in the far east. Some of them are measured in hundreds of feet, not thousands.

Not to continue to knock on 14ers people, but there is a trip report for Grand Teton on 14ers.com. The author either has themselves, or feels the site members are so biased towards 14ers, that they start the report by saying something like, "I know it isn't a 14er, but it's still a cool mountain". When I read that I couldn't believe they had to qualify the Grand as still a cool mountain. It may be touristy, but that is one of the premier peaks in the country, and there is no route that qualifies as "easy" for the average out of shape Nebraskan to walk up. Anyway, I digress, Arizona and California are really cool and far more rugged, I think.

I don't believe you can walk between NM an WY without dropping below 10K'. Some of the passes are lower.

[chumley]

I don't believe you can walk between NM an WY without dropping below 10K'. Some of the passes are lower.

Jim I tended to agree with that, but I wasn't feeling productive today (job-wise), and I was curious about this, so I decided to follow the map. To my surprise there are no low passes along the route:

Beginning about 15 miles southeast of the junction of US 64 and US 84 in NM, following the divide north-northwest into Colorado...

First pass is Cumbres Pass (CR17) elev. 10,020.
Wolf Creek Pass (US 160) elev. 10,857.
Spring Creek Pass (CO 149) elev. 10,901.
North Pass (CO 114) elev. 10,149.
Monarch Pass (US 50) elev. 11,312.
Independence Pass (CO82) elev. 12,100 (just west of Elbert)
Tennessee Pass (US 24) elev. 10,275
Past Copper and Breck
Loveland Pass (US 6) elev. 11,990
Eisenhower Tunnel (I-70) elev. 11,158+
Berthoud Pass (US 40) elev. 11,307
US 34 at north side of RMNP
Cameron Pass (US 14) elev. 10,249

Ends at Ute Pass in the Medicine Bow range just northeast of CO 125 at Walden (elev. 9869) ... no road crossing here. (If this pass were higher, you would only get about another 5 miles before losing the 10k elevation altogether.)
http://hikearizona.com/location_g.php?QX=639
This is about 15 miles from the Wyoming border.

[big_load]

That brings back memories. I once dayhiked from Marshall Pass to Monarch Pass. The prominence didn't seem especially great on that stretch, but the views were nice and the clouds were scary. There was a cluster of bighorns at Marshall Pass chewing gravel from the road.

[Jim]

I stand corrected. I was thinking of the Sangres up through Wyoming, not the western hills in northern NM.

[JimmyLyding]

I stand corrected. I was thinking of the Sangres up through Wyoming, not the western hills in northern NM.

????? The Sangre de Cristos reach into Wyoming?

[Jim]

No, starting in the Sangres and proceeding north.

[big_load]

There is some high stuff in the Rawah / Medicine Bow ranges, but I would be surprised if there weren't some lower passes before then.

[JimmyLyding]

Got it. I see how I misread your post earlier.
Mount Shasta has a very impressive 9000+ feet prominence. I hope to hike it late this summer, but there might not be enough snow melt before next winter. That looks like one humper of a hike!

[Jim]

Normally, people who hike Mt Shasta want snow to be there. It's a long scree slog with out snow.

[sbkelley]

Normally, people who hike Mt Shasta want snow to be there. It's a long scree slog with out snow.

Absolutely. We climbed Shasta last Memorial Day weekend and the snow was great all the way up. Much easier on the joints moving on snow, plus you can glissade down in some places.

California actually has a handful of very prominent peaks, even down south. San Jacinto, San Antonio, and San Gorgornio are all impressive.

[maxpower]

Overall height can often be somewhat irrelevant, depending upon the starting elevation too. Sure, Mt Washington in NH is "only" 6288, but then you can start hiking at 2000 feet or even less, depending on which direction you hike from. I've climbed Washington more than 50 times and for difficulty level (disregarding starting and finishing elevation), it's harder than doing Humphreys from the ski area. The lower 2.5 miles is not so tough. Going up Lions Head or Tuckerman Ravine or Boott Spur is where the excitement starts. And you can always come in from the Great Gulf Ravine trail where it gains about 2,000 feet of elevation in a one mile distance. Add in the nasty weather that Washington is famous for, and the fact that it averages only about 30 days per year of totally clear weather on top, and you have even more fun.

[big_load]

Overall height can often be somewhat irrelevant, depending upon the starting elevation too.

That's what "prominence" is meant to describe.

[Jim]

@Maxpower

No offense to you personally, but I always find it laughable when someone tries to legitimize Mt Washington as a "hard" hike (there are technical routes on it), or say the weather is bad. Yeah, I know it isn't the calm of Boston, but if a weather station was on Rainier, I bet it would be far worse a place. If you want steep on Humphrey, try the winter route.

While over all height can sometimes be irrelevant, as in the case of a 10,000' cinder cone on a 9700' plateau, overall height can still affect the little hike up you have to do to get to a summit. In that sense, the "mountains" of the eastern US are a complete joke. Flagstaff is higher than all of the hills of the east. So while some people have an issue with altitude and might have problems doing a 4000' hike from a starting elevation of Flag, if you have altitude problems hiking or climbing any of the eastern hills, you need to stop smoking and get checked for COPD. In other words, while altitude of a peak doesn't make for a better experience, it does add difficulty and physiologic challenges for those who are not acclimated.

[chumley]

So .... what's the largest contiguous area of Arizona above 10,000 feet? Is it in the Whites? Pinaleños? or the SF Peaks? If the total area is 55 square miles, there's gotta be some nice swaths somewhere?

[Jim]

I looked into that a while back. It is the Whites, and is centered around what I consider to be the shield volcano of Baldy. I remember looking at that mountain from Escudilla in June of 2007. I had to use the fire finder and map to locate it. I thought the peak was hidden behind some ridge, but it was the ridge. Big, broad and gently sloping, the Whites are it, and that is what makes them so important hydrologically. They're like our "San Jauns". The San Francisco Peaks,a the second biggest area over 10k', are big and high, but what makes them great recreationally is their relatively steep sides, and that limits the area over 10,000'. The Pinalenos are a distant 3rd.

[big_load]

So .... what's the largest contiguous area of Arizona above 10,000 feet? Is it in the Whites? Pinaleños? or the SF Peaks?

55 sq miles is surprisingly small. Looking at the map, those three areas seem closer in size to each other than I expected.

[chumley]

Yeah, I just did a quick "route" and there's really no contest. Anybody know how to take the route and calculate the area? Does Google Earth do it?
http://hikearizona.com/location_g.php?MY=276