The Tallest Mountain On Earth

I have no understanding of why this is, but many people do not want Mt. Everest to be the tallest mountain on Earth.  Why would it matter whether or not the highest point on the planet is also the tallest mountain, I cannot fathom.  Really, I cannot really understand why the "height" of the mountain really matters to people who are not climbing it, after all, the height of the mountain and how impressive it is are not really the same thing.

Colorado mountains, for example, are beautiful, but they do not have the jaw dropping base-to-peak elevation of many smaller mountains.  The Colorado Rockies are also, as a generalization, less rugged than other peaks.  That said, a Colorado 14er has a more rarefied atmosphere than an Alaskan peak at 12,000 feet, regardless of cold, glaciers, ruggedness, or base-to-peak, so climbing to 14,000' is harder than to 12,000', all else being equal.

What the anti-Everest crowd key into is that Mount Everest is part of a mountain range, and therefore, "cheats."  How a natural system can cheat, I am not exactly sure.  I am also not sure what is so problematic about plate tectonic created ranges versus mantle hotspot created volcano chains, but I am not inside the mind of those who wish to find obscure measurements to discredit Everest.

The first step in discussing the elevation of a summit is how one defines elevation.  The traditional method is to measure from sea level.  This is useful for humans because we can stand at sea level.  The breathable atmosphere is taken to be about 1 atmosphere of pressure at sea level.  It can be, with only minor complications (the oceans are not flat, think tides), easily measured.  Perhaps best of all, it provides a common point from which one can measure the elevation of other things.  Other points that might be useful to use would be the shore of the Dead Sea (the lowest point not covered by water, -1371'), the Bentley Subglacial Trench (the lowest point not covered by liquid water, -8,382'), and the Challenger Deep (the deepest point on the sea floor, -35,755' (or deeper)).  Choose any of these other datums, and Mt. Everest remains the tallest mountain.

Using any datum on the surface of the earth, the highest point remains Mt. Everest, and the elevation of every summit simply increases (or decreases) by the amount that the new datum lies below (or above) sea level.  The one datum that changes the highest point calculation is the center of the planet.  Owing to the fact that Earth is not spherical, Chimborazo (20,564') in Ecuador is 3967.1 miles above the center of the planet (beating out Everest by 1.3 miles).

Using a standard datum (e.g. sea level) makes surveying (and science) possible.  Some people do not think elevation should be measured from a standard point.  The most common way to measure a mountain from a non-standard datum is prominence.  The goal of prominence is that a peak with high prominence will, generally, be more impressive than a peak with low prominence (if you want the full scoop on prominence, check Wikipedia, or Peakbagger).  Mt. Everest has the most prominence of any mountain (even if disregarding sea level), but as with any moving datum, prominence does have some drawbacks, and the "tallest mountain" crowd will certainly find some nonsensical way to discount this standard method of measuring mountains.

Elevation, as measured by those seeking the "tallest mountain" is commonly the base-to-peak elevation.  I have often considered the base-to-peak issue.  The first problem is actually defining the base.  In my mind, the base of a mountain, to illustrate how impressive it is, would be the highest elevation of a col that connects it to another peak.  I seem to be alone on this, and the base seems to be the lowest point where the mountain is no longer the mountain, but the valley, or gentle slope, in the case of Denali.

Using the base-to-peak measure, there are mountains that are taller than Everest, including Denali.  Denali has a base-to-peak elevation of something like 18,400' to Everest's 13,500' (ish).  Denali's base-to-peak is, of course, much taller than Hawaii's Mauna Kea (13,796', above sea level and base-to-peak).  However, the claim goes that Mauna Kea does not begin at sea level, but rather at the sea floor.

Measuring a mountain from the sea floor is tricky business.  First off, it seems meaningless because one can never gaze from the undersea "base" to the summit (or climb from base to peak).  Second, the scale changes dramatically.  The sea floor is dominated by gentle changes in elevations that would never seem related on the surface.  Mona Kea, for example, if you count all of the volcanism on Hawaii as "Mona Kea," but exclude the Mauna Loa side, stretches out for as much as 100 miles.  Above sea level, humans would never count being 100 miles away from a mountain as being "on" the mountain, yet in the world of submarine "mountains," this is a standard practice.  Using GeoMapApp to plot the bathymetry (and elevation), Mauna Kea's steepest, largest slope has the gentle rise of a slug's tail.

The elevation profile from approximately -5000 to 4000 m over nearly 80 kilometers distance of Mauna Kea's supposed base-to-peak elevation.  Note the volcanic plateau clearly visible at about sea level.  No vertical exaggeration.

Assessing Mauna Kea from other angles reveals even more unimpressive base-to-peak elevation profiles.  From the east, the volcanic plateau that Mauna Kea sits on becomes more evident.

The gentle rise of the Hawaiian volcanic plateau (from 0 to 60 km), and the gentle slopes of Mauna Kea (from 75 to 120 km), separated by the clear plateau (from 60 to 75 km).  Vertical scale from -5000 to 4000 m, no vertical exaggeration.

If Mauna Kea were a mountain above sea level, most people would judge it as having an impressive 13,000 meter base-to-peak, sitting on top of a 20,000 foot plateau.  If all of this was above sea level, plopped in Louisiana, it would be the tallest mountain on earth, and the volcanic plateau would be the highest plateau on the planet, but most of it is submarine, so, just like the off-shore base of Carstensz Pyramid (the highest island high point), it does not count.

The last problem with this measure of Mauna Kea, is that it ignores the existence of the other five volcanoes on Hawaii, like Mauna Loa, elevation 13,679' (120' lower than Mauna Kea), which is said to be the biggest in terms of basal area and volume (which may need to be considered at another time).  Looking at the broad saddle between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, the base-to-peak elevation can be measured as little as about 6500', impressive, but hardly the most impressive peak on the planet.

The 2000 m (6500') base-to-peak elevation of Mauna Kea's south side.  Vertical scale from 0 to 4000 m, no vertical exaggeration.

If measured from the lowest point on the sea floor that lava from Mauna Kea has reached, to the highest point on the mountain, Mauna Kea reaches an impressive 33,500'.  This height towers above Mt. Everest's height above sea level, and Everest's base-to-peak.  However, if submarine mountain bases are in play for largest mountain, than volcanoes will never overcome the mountain building of plate tectonics.  In the same way that the Himalaya tower above the Hawaiian volcanoes, coastal and submarine mountain belts built through plate tectonics tower over the Hawaiian seamounts.

The island nation of Tuvalu is expected to be the first nation to be destroyed by sea level rise.  Though not home to lowest country high point (a title belonging to the Maldives at just under 8'), Tuvalu's 15' high point is a sand dune that has already been over topped in a storm surge.  However, if bathymetry is taken as elevation, Tuvalu becomes not an island nation, but a mountain top nation.  It seems strange that a nations crowning a 15,000' mountain will be the first to be destroyed by a sea level rise of mere inches.

The mountain top nation of Tuvalu will likely be the first nation to be overcome by sea level rise.  Vertical scale -4000 to 0 m, no vertical exaggeration.

Tuvalu, is not a great example of the massive mountains built by plate tectonics, as it too is volcanic.  Mount Lamlam rises 1,332' above sea level, marking Guam's highest point.  This unassuming island high point does not seem like it would be a candidate for tallest mountain in the world, but the Mariana Trench runs just off Guam's coast.  From the Challenger Deep to the top of Mt. Lamlam, Guam's base-to-peak elevation is a stunning rise of up to 37,248', almost 4,000' taller than Mauna Kea.  If measuring from the Challenger Deep to the top of Mt. Lamlam is a stretch (the Mt. Lamlam massif rises above the Challenger Deep, but the peak arguably rises only out of the Mariana Trench), even conservative estimates rank Mt. Lamlam as a 10,000 m peak, putting the peak in contention for the title of tallest.

Guam's inconsequential Mt. Lamlam, possibly the tallest mountain in the world.  Vertical scale from -10,000 to 0 m, no vertical exaggeration.

While Mauna Kea is an impressive volcano, changing the definition of "tallest" to distract from what a mountain is does not respect the peak.  Denali is not taller than Mt. Everest, nor is Mauna Kea.  Each peak is impressive for what it is.  There are plenty of unnamed peaks in Alaska, and throughout the world, that are majestic, and staggering in scale, regardless of how they compare to the other peaks of the world.  The tallest mountain on Earth is Mt. Everest by any rational measure, all the other mountains are spectacular in their own way.

Running for the Next Bend

"Anyone can run 50 miles," I said to a small group of people at breakfast.  I said it knowing that obviously not anyone can run fifty miles, but rather to illustrate a point.  My point was that my running is not amazing in the few truly long distance runs I have done, but rather they are experiences in the wilderness that are obtainable to those who want them. 

My breakfast comment met some resistance, the usual, "I can't" response is the easiest to deal with.  I told the group, "that is your first problem, you have already decided without trying."  I know I am being a bit of a smartmouth when I say these things, but the point has to be made.  "How far do you run right now," I ask? 

"Say one usually runs five miles," I continue, "when you finish that, run it again, until you have run it ten times, 50 miles."  This attitude convinces few people, but there are two points to be made.  First, thinking about 50 miles is really hard, but thinking about increments getting there, those are each manageable.  I do not think anyone can truly set off to cover a great distance, those people will probably never see that they are making progress.  Rather, the success at covering great distances comes to those who pursue the next bend in the trail.

I find road running to be drudgery.  I am not a snob about this, I just lack the motivation to plod along the pavement, in pursuit of a distance, a pace, or a time.  I run on trails to experience a new place, or something new in my own mind.  In my pursuit of running great trails though, I, at some point, had to start by forgetting everything anyone ever tried to teach me about running.

My first marathon I ran while in high school, and I did it more or less off the couch.  I do not want to gloat, some people can do things off the couch, and some cannot, I count myself among the lucky.  Regardless, no one claims that running a marathon off the couch is possible, thus my point is simply that I was apparently never very good at listening to stories about what I can and cannot, or should and should not do.  This, is the second lesson in my pursuit of running.

How most people learned to run was by doing laps around a track or gymnasium, while a whistle-weilding adult in a track suit told you to go faster.  It was about going nowhere as fast as you could.  This form of running is purified to it essential elements on the treadmill.  Pace, distance, and television show re-runs are all that matter in the fitness running of conveyor belt health.  Instead of a race to nowhere, why not an experience in going somewhere?

The runner will soon forget about pace, time, and racing.  Meet your run where your running is.  Walking hills is often sensible, not shameful, because there may be another hill just out of sight.  Stopping to enjoy the scenery, chatting with friends, or simply catching your breath is part of the journey.  Forget trite running rules, and instead dream of the best places to run.

In pursuit of the best places to run, I have compiled a list of trails and destinations.  These dreams of better runs of the future power me through painful runs of the present.  Memories of past great runs, create dreams, and a running euphoria that makes present runs better than previous runs.  Running for the journey creates a cycle of better and better runs!

Using a week of free time, Sarah and I are currently doing some reconnaissance travelling and running to investigate a long held dream destination, Switzerland.  In this land of mountains, trails, and easy to use civilization, the potential for trail running seems to exceed what I had hoped.  With just a week, I will walk away from this trip not with an understanding of Swiss culture, the secret sights of Switzerland, or really having even "been to" any place in this country.  I will walk away from this with 13 miles of sun-scorched views of the Matterhorn, trail maps to plan a proper running trip, and dreams and memories for when the next bend in the trail seems like a little too far to go.

(Pictures and stories of Switzerland soon to come!)