TABLE OF CONTENTS: | |
 | |
Waypoint data is shown in Waypoint+ format - copy and paste into a local text file, then read it into Waypoint+ or TOPO!. Even if you don't have a GPS receiver, use the waypoints in the regional peak listings to jump to box locations in TOPO!. Each region is shown as an outline, and bookmarks help you find them before or after you overlay the regions with GPS coordinates to locate the peaks. NEW IN 2007: From each regional or box detail page, you can view that region overlaid with roads and trails on satellite images or maps using Google Maps (web application) or Google Earth (must download and install).
If you follow the links below down to the peak details, you will find links to photos for many of the peaks, or you can jump to Karpel's Peak Pictures. Also with the peak details, there are links to TopoZone where you can view scalable online topo maps showing the peak location.
Richard Carey has lots of data on these and other peaks, and his SPS and DPS sections are good places to start browsing.
The Vulgarian Ramblers maintain a list of all CA 13ers, based on the best available USGS field survey and DEM data. For more details on DEM data, see the "Some Notes on Data Accuracy", "Column Descriptions and Color Usage", and "Even More Technical Information" sections of their web page.
This list was prepared as a convenient reference to many of the major peaks of the Sierra Nevada, by combining the official SPS Peaks List (published by the Sierra Peaks Section, Angeles Chapter, Sierra Club) and the Major Sierra Peaks list (as published in the "Scree" newsletter of the Peak Climbing Section, Loma Prieta Chapter, Sierra Club) plus a bunch that I added because I've been there or someone asked me to add them. It is hoped that this list will aid people both in choosing a peak to climb and in planning the trip. This version includes peaks not on the SPS list, which are labeled with 'XX' so they can be found and deleted to recover the official SPS Peaks List, as with "The Sphinx 11.xx".
IN GENERAL, "EMBLEM" peaks dominate the area by their bulk or the amount of terrain that can be seen from the summit, and "MOUNTAINEERS" peaks represent high quality alpine climbing. Obviously, there are worthy climbs not on this list - and there are also peaks on this list that have trails to the top! The peaks are grouped into 24 geographical areas that are listed in a south to north direction. The names of the 15 emblem peaks are capitalized and marked with 'E' and the 35 mountaineers peaks are marked with 'M' between the region number and the peak name in the regional listings.
The climbing class (difficulty rating) indicates the difficulty of the easiest route on the peak, but this is not necessarily the most commonly climbed route. The classes are summarized here, but a detailed description of ratings is online:
The cartographer of the new 7.5 min maps seems to have shifted the summit location of Mt Powell and Mt Emerson but the SPS (and the USGS's GNIS database) continues to recognize the nearby older and higher location. The 7.5 min Mount Whitney map has the spelling "Mt Chamberlain" but the correct name is "Chamberlin", which is used on the older 15 min map, since the mountain was named by the Sierra Club for geologist Thomas Chrowder Chamberlin.
UTM (Universal Transverse Mercator) coordinates are useful for specifying locations on a map: peaks, campsites, or points on a climbing route. The UTM grid is defined by fine black lines on recent maps and by blue tick marks along the edge of older maps. The lines are one kilometer apart and have a two digit identifying number.
A location to the nearest 100 meters is given by a six digit number. The first two digits are the eastward coordinate obtained from the top or bottom edge of the map and the third digit is the number of tenths of a kilometer to the east of the grid line. The fourth and fifth digits are the northward coordinate obtained from the left or right edge of the map and the sixth digit is the tenths of a km to the north of the grid line. For example Cartago Peak (012203) is about 200 meters (third digit) east of the north-south grid line that is numbered "01" on the map edge and about 300 meters (sixth digit) north of the east-west grid line that is numbered "20" on the map.
A location can be given to a precision of 10 meters by using an eight digit number where the third and fourth digits and the seventh and eighth digits give the fraction of a km to one percent. For example, Cartago Peak is the highest rock pile out of several nearby; its location to a precision of 10 meters is 01152033.
A memory aid for the order of the digits is "read right up", i.e. eastward then northward.
Latitude and Longitude (in degrees) are equivalent to UTMs as representations of location, but since the 'size' of a degree varies with location some people prefer UTMs when they are interpolating their position on a paper map. Some software mapping tools cannot read or write UTMs, so the data below is available in both formats.
The amount of error between the datum used for drawing most UGSG maps (NAD27) and the datum used by GPS satellites (WGS84 is essentially the same as NAD83) varies with location. In places the difference between NAD27 and NAD83 datum is about a tenth of a mile or 100 meters. Authoritative details of how to convert between NAD27 and NAD83, including charts of how much difference there is between them as a function of location, can be found on the US National Geodetic Survey's NADCON page. Be sure your maps and/or software are using the same datum, or use software like Waypoint+ or TOPO!GPS to convert. The data in THIS file has the datum specified with the waypoints! Assume nothing!