That world be the true distance but ISTR that even for EME they give the SP distance between the points on the earth.
And if claiming LP distances, do we just claim the one, or - if we hear a faint echo after another lap of the planet, shall we claim the LP + 20000 distance?
I have walked up The Cloud G/SP-015 from the nearest parking spot on Red Lane - an 8 minute ascent - on more than one occasion… 
I have also walked up it starting the hike at my home QTH - a walk of several hours. The points are the same.
Make things more complicated and more challenging if you like, but the core scheme remains simple and objective.
I’ve worked G4OBK from here in GM via LP for some 39600km contacts. In fact longer as there were many round the world echoes at times. But it’s not feasible to verify. You could try to claim LP based on time of day, recorded ionograms showing likelyhood of a path etc. but it’s going to be difficult to be sure. So SP is really the only measure for this. As I wrote, they do SP distance for EME still and ignore the extra 476000miles the signal has travelled and the 250dB loss on the path.
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But perhaps one day a Lunar summit might be activated…
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Don’t think it has much to do with the effort in getting to the Activation point. If the band is only open LP to a certain area at that time of day, how can it be a SP contact.
Believe me at 06:00 to 08:00 in VK6 or any other VK area, point your beams short path to Europe and you hear stuff all. Point them LP its a different story.
Had a listen for you LP 
on Saturday nothing heard.
73
John VK6NU
True enough John, but that’s not the argument here. We are not questioning whether it is a SP, LP, multi-echo or Moonbounce path; just the direct surface distance between the two ends of the QSO, for reasons of objectivity alone.
Andy’s multi-echo QSO with Phil (example above) is a perfect example of how silly it could get otherwise.
Of course, for an award you would want a multiplier based on the summit score. So a 3000km QSO from a 10pt summit would score 30000 and 16500km QSO from a 1pt summits would score 16500. Otherwise you are not rewarding the effort someone put in climbing the high scoring summit.
#LOREAL
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I wondered how long it would be before someone brought up multipliers…
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Someone drives on to a 10 pointer and works the world, then sees his score multiplied into the stratosphere…No drive on 10 pointers in the UK, that I’m aware of…
Not legally at least!
Note the hashtag at the end of Andy’s post Mickey. I think he’s being ironic
My result S2S:
| CALL | SP | LP | |
|---|---|---|---|
| VK3PF | 15146 | 24854 | |
| VK3ARH | 15261 | 24739 | |
| VK7JON | 15234 | 24766 | |
| VK1MIC | 15217 | 24783 | |
| VK1DA | 15203 | 24797 | |
| VK1AD | 15186 | 24814 | |
| VK6NU | 12454 | 27546 | |
| TOTAL | 103701 | 176299 |
LP=40000-SP
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I thought I might put up a candidate for longest contact.
Yesterday I activated Moorhouse Range ZL3/CB-574 as ZL3X for the Andrew White ZL3CC memorial. It is a 1153 metre 4 pointer which is one of the foothills to the Southern Alps. I worked CT1HIX on 20m CW which by my calculation is 19,851km short path (I took his locator off his QRZ.com page). I was running 10 watts into an end fed antenna with 9:1 balun, the end of which was 7m or so above the ground on a SOTA Beams pole.
In the 12 months I have been doing SOTA it was probably the best day’s propagation I’ve ever had on an activation. I even managed 3 JAs on 20m CW as well and a host of VKs.
Here is a picture of the view looking South West across the Rangitata River. Mt Harper ZL3/CB-313 is to the right with a bunch of 10 pointers in the distance.
73
Mark ZL3AB
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Well done mark!
With the way propagation has been recently that is an amazing feat NZ to Portugal. What time was the contact? We seem to more often grab long path contacts than short path depending upon the time of day, so your contact might be even longer than you think.
Hopefully the database savvy guru’s will be able to run an inquiry across entered data to come up with the longest activator-chaser contact ever in SOTA, so make sure you have your contact data entered.
73 Ed DD5LP.
Hi Ed
It was 00:49z.
I didn’t think of it before but DXers in ZL have been aware of a lunchtime (our time) 20m opening over the south pole and into central Africa. That is the hardest part of the world for ZL to work. It maybe that path continues on into western Europe. A few weeks ago Geoff ZL3GA worked CT on 20m SSB from another summit around the same time - I’m sure mine was further 
Anyway if you can stay up past midnight, you EU guys might have a reasonable shot at working us on the far side.
73
Mark ZL3AB
Mike 2E0YYY has been going out for the last few weeks around midnight trying for VK/ZL. It’s been difficult (he, like I, only runs SSB not CW). He’s been getting far more North and South American stations than VK/ZL. The ones he has managed into VK have been long path, so there’s a good change your contact into CT was also long path - which would put quite a few more km/miles on the contact!
73 Ed.
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SSB only? Blimey you blokes are gluttons for punishment 
In ZL most activators use SSB on HF with only a handful of us on CW, so if the propagation gods smile you should have a shot. Most ZL3 activations are usually around midday our time, mainly due to the fact it takes a long time to get to and climb most of the summits here.
I was actually hearing Spanish speaking stations (I assume South American) on 40m SSB earlier in the activation which was amazing considering it was midday here. It really was an intriguing day propagation wise.
73
Mark ZL3AB
Only if it’s an S2S QSO.
OK, understood. Shame it would be nice to track the longest contacts. But in the whole realm of life, not that important.
73 Ed.
When it is done, if not already, it will be an EME contact I reckon.