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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 68.148.255.247 (talk) at 23:44, 18 October 2009 (→Distance to Badwater Basin). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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Geographical and Geological Information

... missing. This should be item #1 in an encyclopedian article.

Assessment

the class of this article is not yet B since it lacks sufficient breadth, eg ecology and history.

Several issues:

  1. The elevation of Mount Whitney differs between sources. A possibly out-of- date USGS map is not necessarily the best, although I'm sticking with this elevation for now, until we have more data. The canonical data source for elevations of benchmarks is the National Geodetic Survey http://www.ngs.noaa.gov .. The benchmark on top of Mount Whitney has ID GT1811. I tried to look it up in the database, but it was down. The Sierra Club peak baggers captured the 1999 data for that benchmark, and it said 14,505' (!!) http://www.peakbagging.com/SPS%20BM/GT1811.txt .. I think we should use whatever the NGS says is the latest value.
  2. Owens Valley, being a non-point geographic feature, does not have one elevation. Therefore, giving a precise (down to the foot) elevation difference is extremely misleading.
  3. I'm not sure of the licensing of topozone .. I removed the link, but we can put it back if someone checks to see if they don't mind deep linking.
  4. Let's keep discussion on this page, rather than mucking up the article.

--hike395 07:38, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Searching the USGS data on the USGS Geographic Names Information System, I found the following record:

Feature ID Number (FID)269051
State Alpha CodeCA
Feature NameWhitney, Mount
Feature Typesummit
County NameTulare
State Number Code (FIPS Code)6
County Number Code (FIPS Code)107
Primary Latitude (DMS)363442N
Primary Longitude (DMS)1181733W
Primary Latitude (decimal degrees)36.57833
Primary Longitude (decimal degrees)-118.2925
Source Latitude (DMS) 
Source Longitude (DMS) 
Source Latitude (decimal degrees) 
Source Longitude (decimal degrees) 
Elevation14494
Estimated Population 
Federal StatusBGN 1891
Cell NameMount Whitney

So I think it's time to go with the number that the majority of sources quote: 14,494 feet, and 4418 meters. I won't go willy nilly editing the page, though, respecting the comments, above. Additional discussion about the height of this mountain can be found at Talk:California.
--GraemeMcRae 16:01, 13 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Further discussion at Talk:California. -- hike395 06:12, 14 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for addig the summary, hike395. -Willmcw 20:53, 15 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
A better paragraph I have never read. Thank you, hike395. --GraemeMcRae 02:06, 16 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Monsoon season?

"Common advice is to be off of the peak by noon during the summer monsoon season." does california really have a monsoon season? Dandube 13:20, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, though folks who aren't climbing tall peaks may not notice it. -Will Beback 16:25, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Badwater Ultramarathon

Does this really need to be in the summary? As it's really not important to the article, I think it should be moved lower, maybe into the Popular Culture heading as an anecdote. toki 06:47, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I removed the following links from the External links section, per WP:EL. I invite opinions about whether to put any of them back in. My main reasons: there were a lot of links for what is still a short article, and most of these are personal trip reports or commercial pages. The TierraWiki link is a link to a new, unstable wiki, which is deprecated by WP:EL, although I could see going against that guideline. Comments? -- Spireguy 05:00, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'd argue that the Portal Store is virtually an "official" link and should be retained. Tierrawiki may be a useful site as well. The rest seem to be trip reports and photos, about which I'm indifferent. -Will Beback · † · 21:14, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
PS: I just noticed that Tierrawiki put the marker for the summit in the wrong location. Maybe it's not as relialbe as it should be. -Will Beback · † · 21:17, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oops, they do miss the summit a bit. Yes, leave 'em out, one official website for Whitney Portal should be fine, leaving in or out Will Beback's desired links, doesn't matter. Thanks for the clean-up. KP Botany 21:40, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I removed this external link because it is strictly commercial although the picture is great. Read it and see what you think. --DRoll (talk) 07:32, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hiking section getting long

The hiking section is getting long, with some stuff that seems less than encyclopedic. I changed the way it was written, but maybe we should actually remove some of the Wikitravel-type details. Any comments?

I moved most of it to its own article: Mount Whitney trail, because it really has more to do with the trail than the mountain itself. We can edit it over there, if you like. I also tried to add more about geology, based on the complaint of the anon editor. hike395 06:19, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Distance to Badwater Basin

Maps show nearer to 84.5 miles, going by the lat/long given in these articles. ?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.148.255.247 (talk) 23:37, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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