Talk:Kedartal

Altitude
Tim2007viatge (talk) 11:31, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

I updated this article from "5,000m (16,400 feet)" to "4,750m (15,600feet)", based on a reported GPS measurement and supported by Google and Bhuvan satellite maps.

GPS

Googling for KEDAR TAL ALTITUDE GPS you find a video from year 2010 with this information: "Altitude reading as per gps for camp1 was 13527 feet kedartal showed 15594 feet".

WWW

Many internet sources say 5,000m or 16,400ft, some say 4,425m or 14,500ft. I guess these data are from older, less reliable surveys and have been copied on and on.

PAPER MAP

My "Nest and Wings" map "Uttarakhand" gives an altitude of 4,500m for Kedar Tal (Copyright 2007 by Government of India, based upon Survey of India map).

EXACTNESS

Information about altitude data of places in Garhwal - like Kedar Tal, Badrinath or Hemkund Sahib - varies considerably between different sources. Compared with the exactness of the first measurement of Mt. Everst, 29,002ft = 8,840m measured in 1856, it seems that this region was given less priority by surveyors.

GOOGLE MAP

Kedar Tal can be located with the satellite view of Google Map. By switching to map view with terrain mode, you see that it is between 4,700m and 4,800m altitude lines. This matches with the 4,750m measured with GPS, even if you take into account that peak heights indicated by Google map altitude lines tend to be a bit lower than the real values: Everest (8848m) at 8,800m – 8,900m, Kilimanjaro (5,895m) at 5,820m – 5,840m, Aconcagua (6,962m) at 6,920-6,940, Mont Blanc (4,819m) at 4,780m – 4,800m, Mount Fuji (3,776m) at 3,720m – 3,740m.

BHUVAN

The altitude is 4710m on Bhuvan (3D, measure, query terrain). Bhuvan shows 6,532m for Thalay Sagar (6,840m – 6,860m in Google map) and 8,801 for Mount Everest. Is Bhuvan altitude data more reliable for flat surfaces than for peaks?