“I’m at the top of Mount Evans, more than 14,000 feet above sea level. This is definitely a mountain: but why doesn’t the smaller summit next to it also count? Let’s talk about prominence.”

For the amount of time we spend in the mountains its a wonder how we probably don’t know exactly how define one from another. It’s probably because we are having so much fun we don’t care about the technicalities involved but its cool to take a minute and educate yourself on the finer points.

**just keep this image in your mind when you are explaining the idea of  prominence to someone: 

wikipedia: In topography, prominence characterizes the height of a mountain or hill’s summit by the vertical distance between it and the lowest contour line encircling it but containing no higher summit within it. It is a measure of the independence of a summit.

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