Early in 2008 it was discovered that a significant number of SOTA summits in Germany did not conform to the required 150m prominence. In an attempt to minimise the resultant difficulties, the MT acceded to a request by the German AM for the Association to move to a prominence value of 100m. To allow the necessary work to be carried out, it was agreed that all listed summits non-compliant with P100 would remain valid until 31/12/2008, when a new list would come into force.
Various factors have delayed the compilation of the new list which will not be ready until sometime in early 2009. However, when it is published, all non-compliant summits will be marked as valid until 31/12/2008. Therefore, anybody considering activating a German summit in 2009 is advised to check with the AM to ensure that the summit will actually be valid. Any inadvertent “activation” of such a summit may initially be accepted by the database, but will be retrospectively removed as invalid when the new summit list is uploaded.
Although the imminent loss of so many summits may cause some dismay, analysis by the MT has revealed that there may be a significant number of qualifying summits which have not yet been listed. In the longer term, then, there will be new German summits available to activate and chase.
SOTA Management Team