Hello from the Pacific Northwest, Washington State. I notice there are no summits listed for the W7 area.Is there a need for information or construction of such data? The area must have thousands of summits untouched.
Any insight would be appreciated.
KI7Z
In reply to KI7Z:
You should contact Jim, K9JWV, and Guy, N7UN, who are assembling the W7 association.
Stu KI6J
In reply to KI7Z:
Here’s some good information os Washington State peaks … all the way down to P400’
http://howbert.netherweb.com/mountains/
Andrew
K1YMI
In reply to KI6J:
Will do, this is a very complex geography and I would think there are hundreds, if not thousands of worthy summits.
Thank you.
In reply to KI7Z:
You don’t need a complete list to start a SOTA scheme. You can start with just a few and add others later.
73
Richard
G3CWI
In reply to KI7Z:
Frustration with the fact that there were no summits listed in W1 is what prompted me to start the W1 Association myself…
73,
Tom-N2YTF
In reply to G3CWI:
In reply to KI7Z:
You don’t need a complete list to start a SOTA scheme. You can start
with just a few and add others later.
Hi there–
just a technical question: how do you go about assigning points for an association if you’ve only got a partial list, unless you just eyeball the point bands instead of establishing them once you’ve got a complete list?
(even if only one region in the association went online at a time I think you’d still have the same problem)
Jason
HL4/W2VLA
PS–we just finished up the database for Korea on Wednesday. For those interested in taking a gander at the 2456 mountains in ROK I’ve got a google earth kmz file posted at
http://groups.google.com/group/hl-sota/files
...it's the SOTA-HL-BEFORE_POINTS.kmz file.
The points for the summits have been assigned in the database, however I’ll only be updating the earth map maybe next month.
73
In reply to HL4/W2VLA:
Contact the management team! Les, G3VQO is the correct person.
http://www.sota.org.uk/Contact
73
Richard
G3CWI
In reply to HL4/W2VLA:
Good work. The data is available. Just takes a bit of effort to prepare it for SOTA from what I see. That is great that you completed that.
There are 4300+ summits in Washington State, another 2000+ in Oregon. At least that again in Idaho and again in Montana. And Utah would add another large batch. I would estimate the entire W7 region would have well over 20,000 total summits. Add WL7 and you more than triple that number (guess). Gathering the data is not a difficult job and has already been prepared for SOTA for both WA and ORE from what I understand. Apparently there is delay with other regions of W7 although this data could be assembled quickly via existing databases that are open to the public and a bit of knowledge in database operation and some cartography work.
My question(s): Could the Washington and Oregon area data be added even though the rest of W7 is not prepared?
I am new and all, but I am thinking perhaps this W7 region might be well served to subdivide it?? The Pacific Northwest (WA, OR, ID) alone will be well over 10,000 summits. Many that are +5000’ prominence and some > 10,000’ prominence. And that brings up a curious factor/? for me. Some areas have base altitudes that are quite high. Others have very low base altitudes, even sea level. Yet summits within miles of that sea can be as high as 14,000’ AMSL as it is here in Wa. State. So how does the scoring work regarding Prominence and difficulty? Elevation alone could be misleading.
Thank you all! Take care. Please forgive me if these topics have been covered as I am new to SOTA.
Scoring is based on elevation. Prominence based and other scoring systems have been investigated, but without finding something that can work globally.
This does, as you suggest, throw up anomolies. Nearly every association includes some higher scoring summits that are easier and lower scoring summits that are very much harder. We have many examples here in G, though perhaps none quite so pronounced as the examples you quote in Washington state!
Yes, you do not have to launch with complete lists. You may launch with the data you have, and add more summits as time goes on. Are the 20,000 summits all qualifying with 150m / 500 feet prominence. I see that the total number of peaks in Washington with 400 feet of prominence is 3157, so the P500’ number will be less still.
It still looks a lot though, and you would be welcome to explore the ideas of launching with partial lists and/or subdividing W7 into more than one association.
Tom M1EYP
In reply to KI7Z:
There are about 7500 summits which qualify for SOTA inclusion in the W7 call area, and the request to divide the area into separate SOTA associations has been asked and answered by the MT.
Generating a list of qualifying summits is only a single step in the process of getting a SOTA association formed and approved. Please consider a potential new activator looking at a list of 600 or more summits in a region, most of which are unnamed, and deciding which to climb. The list can be more difficult to navigate than the mountain. Turning the list of all qualifying summits into a usable list of accessible, climbable, and well documented summits is, in my belief, the “hard” part.
The large scale of the W7 association has been a hindrance to its development, but not due to lack of summit data. Too large for a single association manager to handle properly, diplomacy is required. Need I say more?
The issue of a fair scoring system covering the entire call area has come up, once again asked and answered by the MT.
I know Jim and Guy will not turn down an offer for volunteer labor. Let them know you want to help.
Stu
In reply to KI7Z:
I think Stu is dead on. Its beefing up the information pages on the summits that is really a lot of work and important in terms of growing the ranks of activators. Having more summits is important, but I think it is the rare first time activator that will go to a summit with no access information in hand.
When I started hiking in the NYC area, I couldn’t find trailmaps, I had no idea where or if I could park at the different summits…it was all a mystery. Town libraries/governments had no idea how to access the summits in their area, and the trailclubs are very regional…they have some info for some of the summits in their area and nothing about surrounding areas. I got lost several times trying to locate my first summit, South Beacon Mountain.
I have found that to find trail info/access info for a summit I might have to check with local, state, and federal governments as well as an assortment of trail clubs, nature preservation groups and other internet sources before I can put together a picture of how to get up the mountain or even if a mountain is open to the public.
Its important for me to have a plan BEFORE I get to a hill’s area because most hills are quite some distance from my home and I don’t have loads of extra time…I can’t drive an hour one way only to find out there is no access to a summit or that access is limited to certain hours/days.
Now, coming up on two years of activating, I am much better at finding trail info, but many reasonably close by summits are still mysteries to me, and an exhaustive search has turned up nothing in terms of access information.
I have found that in W1 and W2 most new activators seem to activate summits that already have info posted on the summit information pages. This would lead me to believe that if more summits had info posted, then more activators would join the program because more homes would be within easy driving distance of summits where access info had already been detailed by other hams.
I know in W3 they are trying to build a website with a map of all the summits with notations on which summits have information posted.
The only good graphical resource I have found for all SOTA summits is the google earth file at:
which does NOT label which summits have info posted.
If someone could make a live resource, or if you in W7 could make something where potential activators could see on a map which summits did have and which did not have access info posted then I think you would be taking a great leap towards bringing SOTA to greater numbers of people.
I would say you should get as many summits in the program as possible, but be sure to make it easy for potential activators to find summits near them where someone else has already done the leg work of determining access and trail info.
Also I want to stress to all the activators out there, help your fellow hams…after you activate a summit, update the summit information page with any access info you have. Access might be obvious to you, but not to others without a bit of a guiding hand. Its always upsetting to see summits that have been activated but have no info posted…
73,
Tom-N2YTF
In reply to N2YTF:
You don’t need to put all qualifying summits by the beginning. You’ll have all the time to add them later. Why not begin with easiest ones, this will let you members learn the easy way and not deceptions.
This topic gave me the idea to add a section in our new VE2SOTA web, that will be online today around 1700UTC, some sort od EASY SUMMITS FOR BEGINNERS that will provide some ideas and driving directions to summits close to cities. Could use external source, maybe mapquest, I’ll have to check.
73