Talk:List of mountain peaks of Alaska

Topographic Prominence
The primary criterion for inclusion in this article is that a peak must have at least 500 m of topographic prominence. Many of the peaks in the National Park Service publication Highest Alaskan Summits do not meet this criterion. Please see peakbagger.com for the prominence of these peaks. There are many wonderful peaks with less prominence, but this article uses this high prominence criterion. --Buaidh (talk) 16:54, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Your list of the top 50 peaks in Alaska with a prominence of 500 meters (1640 feet) is woefully inaccurate. You omitted the following peaks (elevations and prominence in feet in parentheses):

Mount Jarvis (13421; prom 4771), Mount Tressider (13315; prom 1665), Mount Silverthrone (13220; prom 3270), Mount Moffit (13020; prom 3970), Mount Root (12860; prom 3208), Mount Crosson (12800; prom 1650), Mount Gunnar Naslund (12658; prom 2108), Mount Tlingit (12606; prom 2056), Mount Carpe (12550; prom 1800), Kahiltna Dome (12525; prom 2175), Mount Thor (12521; prom 3271), Mount Watson (12516; prom 1966), Peak 12360 near the Black Rapids Glacier, the Middle Prong Glacier, and the Susitna Glacier in the Hayes Range of the Alaska Range (12360; prom 2910), Mount Huntington (12240; prom 2990), Mount Huxley near the Columbus Glacier and the Tyndall Glacier in the Saint Elias Mountains (12216; prom 2066), Mount Jordan (12190; prom 2340), Mount Salisbury (12170; prom 3920), Siri's Peak (12050; prom 2600), Mount Witherspoon (12012; prom 2162), Peak 11950 near the Mussell Glacier in the Saint Elias Mountains (11950; prom 2000), Hess Mountain (11940; prom 2490), Mount Brooks (11940; prom 1790) The Grand Parapet (11930; prom 2180), Lituya Mountain (11924; prom 3674), Haydon Peak (11924; prom 1674), and Peak 11915 near the Barnard Glacier and the Ram Glacier in the Saint Elias Mountains (11915; prom 2665) 216.137.192.44 (talk) 02:04, 25 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree, it does look like a lot of these peaks should be included in the list. However, I can't find any source that lists the highest Alaskan peaks using the criteria here (or a broader criteria so that we can extract what we want from them) that claims to be complete.  (Neither peakbagger.com nor bivouac.com make any claim to have a complete list, for example.  And cohp.org which often has such things appears not to have one for Alaska.)  Given how inadequate the current list is, we really need a proper source for this rather than to just add mountains that immediately spring to mind.  —ras52 (talk) 10:50, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Take a look at the list of the peaks in Alaska over 10,000 feet as posted on Summitpost.com. Or try looking at the individual peaks as presented on peakbagger.com. Posting a sham of a list and trying to pass it off as accurate is worse than posting no list at all. What verification was done in advance of posting the list currently presented? Nobody who knows anything about Alaska geography would think that there are only 50 Alaskan peaks over 8300 feet. I can identify 67 Alaska peaks with at least 500-meter prominences that have summit elevations over 11,000 feet alone. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.67.106.181 (talk) 18:49, 25 August 2009 (UTC) Sorry, the first and third posts are mine. Steve Gruhn sgruhn@clarus-ak.com

More than a year after being initially informed that the elevation and isolation lists were essentially garbage, absolutely no effort has been made by the page author to change these lists. For an accurate elevation list, see either summitpost.com or listsofjohn.com. I don't know of an accurate isolation list, but the one posted on wikipedia is filled with errors.216.67.106.181 (talk) 18:36, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Mount Vancouver
Good Neighbor Peak should be on your list, or at least have a footnote. As Mount Vancouver's south summit, it is on the US-Canada border and therefore an Alaskan peak. As its article indicates, it is uncertain which summit it higher. If it is the higher summit, then it has plenty of prominence.ArcticBartek (talk) 16:48, 15 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Peakbagger.com states "The consensus among climbers who have summited this remote and rarely-climbed peak is that the northern summit, entirely in the Yukon, is the highest. However, there is serious disagreement over the elevations."


 * I have assumed that this is indeed the case, and I show the highest summit of Mount Vancouver as a Canadian peak. Please see Mountain peaks of Canada and Mountain peaks of North America for Mount Vancouver.  --Buaidh (talk) 17:25, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Proposed changes
Your list of the 50 highest peaks in Alaska with a minimum prominence of 1640 feet omits 26 of the top 50 peaks. When a purported list omits more than half of the items on that list, some serious changes should be made, either to the title of the list or to those items that populate the list. As it stands currently, the list is so inaccurate that it's pretty much garbage.

The list of most isolated mountains omits several likely candidates. Where, for example, are Attu Mountain on Attu Island), the highpoint of Hall Island (isolation of 193 miles), Roberts Mountain (on Nunivak Island) with an isolation of 174 miles, and the 2,430-foot highpoint of the Kusilvak Mountains. All have prominences over 500 meters.  Try to make the list as complete as possible before posting it.  also note that the 1:63360 USGS map indicates that the summit of Mount Neacola is between 9300 and 9400 feet, not 9426 feet as reported on this page.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.67.106.181 (talk) 19:00, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Both posts are mine. Steve Gruhn sgruhn@clarus-ak.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.67.106.181 (talk) 19:03, 25 August 2009 (UTC)


 * The requirement for 500 m of topographic prominence is used by each of the following articles:
 * Mountain peaks of Alaska
 * Mountain peaks of California
 * Mountain peaks of Canada
 * Mountain peaks of Central America
 * Mountain peaks of Colorado
 * Mountain peaks of Greenland
 * Mountain peaks of México
 * Mountain peaks of North America
 * Mountain peaks of the Caribbean
 * Mountain peaks of the Rocky Mountains
 * Mountain peaks of the United States
 * I'll take a look at your suggestions.
 * Thanks, Buaidh (talk) 21:17, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Try clicking on the PB icon of the peaks listed in the most isolated list. The isolation values on Peakbagger.com vary greatly for some of the peaks that you have listed. Check out Cloud Peak and Debauch Mountain, for example. There is very little that's accurate on this list. Steve Gruhn. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.178.30.76 (talk) 00:02, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
 * As the footnotes on those pages indicate, most of the peaks in the lower 48 states were measured using the National Geodetic Vertical Datum of 1929. The elevation of those peaks has been adjusted to the North American Vertical Datum of 1988.  Please see this National Geodetic Survey page.  An elevation converter is available at VERTCON.  Please do not change any elevations unless you understand the basis for the measurements.  Please log into Wikipedia before posting your next comments.  Your aye, Buaidh (talk) 02:23, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm no expert on posting on wikipedia, but one of the requirements is that encyclopedic content must be verifiable. How can you verify that Mount Veniaminof is the 50th highest peak in Alaska that has 500 meters of prominence when summitpost presents a relatively accurate listing of over 100 peaks that are higher than Mount Veniaminof and that have prominences of over 500 meters? How can you verify that the isolations of Debauch Mountain and Cloud Peak are greater than 100 miles when Peakbagger.com says that they are each less than 15 miles? My point is not that one survey is inaccurate and that another is more correct. My point is the flat-out omission of numerous peaks that qualify for listing based upon the 500-meter prominence criteria stated and the incorrect isolation values that you have inexplicably assigned to certain peaks. You also list several peaks on your isolation list that have higher peaks relatively close by. For example, Peakbagger.com indicates that Debauch Mountain has a higher peak within 15 miles of it (there is a peak [Peak 4030] that is over 600 feet higher than Debauch Mountain 14.6 miles east-southeast of Debauch Mountain); your list inaccurately states that Debauch Mountain has an isolation of 123 miles. Similarly, you list the isolation of Cloud Peak as 108 miles; peakbagger.com lists it as less than 10 miles. This is not a matter of a mere change in the surveys. Rather it is a matter of passing off incomplete data as being complete. All known surveys list Accomplishment Peak (within 10 miles of Cloud Peak) as being higher than Cloud Peak. For your highest peaks list, investigate John Kirk's list of Alaska peaks over 10,000 feet as posted on Summitpost.com (http://www.summitpost.org/list/357094/alaska-10k-peaks.html). You will note that there is pretty fair agreement for the 19 highest peaks in Alaska. After that, however, your list departs from reality and omits many peaks that should be on the list - starting with Mount Jarvis, Mount Tressider, and Mount Silverthrone and continuing with the peaks listed above. Supporting information can be found at peakbagger.com for each of these peaks. Pretending that Mount Veniaminaof at 8,225 feet is the 50th highest peak in Alaska is flat-out incorrect. I can name 114 peaks in Alaska that are over 10,000 feet and have prominences over 1640.4 feet (500 meters). Your lists need substantial corrections before they will approach accuracy.Steve Gruhn (talk) 23:40, 22 September 2009 (UTC)


 * The list of highest peaks is indeed woefully inaccurate. If this is to be presented as a ranked, complete list (which is how it is presented now), then it needs to be complete. So either it needs to be completely redone as a complete list, with careful sourcing, or, if that is not possible, it needs to be re-written as an incomplete, unranked list, with a very clear proviso in the intro that it is incomplete. The same goes for the isolation list.


 * I also object to Buaidh's request that Steve needed to log in to WP before posting comments. He had been signing his comments anyway. See WP:NEWCOMER and WP:HUMAN. -- Spireguy (talk) 19:05, 23 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Please e-mail me your lists of updates to this article and I will be happy to include them, or you can add them yourself. The lists of Alaskan peaks available to me at the time this article was written were quite limited.


 * This article uses the same 500 meter prominence criterion as the series of Mountain Peak articles listed above for the sake of uniformity. This does not imply that peaks of lesser prominence are not worthy of our attention.


 * There are many other lists of mountains on Wikipedia and some use a different prominence criterion than 500 meters. The List of California fourteeners and the List of Colorado fourteeners use 300 feet (91.44 meters).  The list of four-thousand footers uses 200 feet (60.96 meters).  Many European lists use 100 meters (328.08 feet).  The Eight-thousander article uses 1000 meters (3280.84 feet) as the prominence criterion.  Lists of ultra prominent peaks use 1500 meters (4921.26 feet).  Many lists do not name their criterion, although one is usually assumed.


 * I understand that 500 feet (152.4 meters) of prominence is often used in Alaskan mountaineering. I suggest that we create a new article at the List of mountain peaks of Alaska (which currently redirects to this article).  The new article can be more inclusive by using a lesser prominence criterion.  Yours aye, Buaidh (talk) 21:28, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Good height-ranked lists are available at, , , ,. I will likely not have time soon to insert missing peaks myself.

Another issue is the coining of the term "major" in this and other lists to mean "having 500 meters of prominence." New terms should not be coined on Wikipedia. In fact, (as noted in discussions on the prominence e-group) the term "major" has been used elsewhere for a different prominence cutoff. So I would recommend taking out the term. -- Spireguy (talk) 03:01, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

To be clear, I am not objecting to your use of 500 meters as a requirement for listing; it's clearly stated. My objections deal with the omissions of peaks that should be actually listed among the highest peaks and most isolated peaks, as well as inaccurately stated isolations on your lists. Summitpost.org and Listsofjohn.com both present decent elevation-based lists of Alaskan peaks. However, I do not know of an accurate compiled isolation list for Alaskan peaks. Yours is the only such list I know of and unfortunately with all the errors, I can't deem it accurate.Steve Gruhn (talk) 18:34, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

More than a year after initially being informed that the elevation and isolation lists are filled with errors, no changes have been made by the page author. Accurate elevation lists are available at summitpost.rog and listsofjohn.com. I don't know of an accurate isolation list for Alaska, but the one posted on wikipedia is far from accurate. Steve Gruhn.216.67.106.181 (talk) 18:39, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

The page definitely needs to be changed to reflect the fact that these are not complete ranked lists. I'll try to make some changes along those lines soon. -- Spireguy (talk) 03:14, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

I went ahead and addded a few peaks, and put a few notes in to the effect that the tables are not complete at this point. I willfully ignored the comment at the start of the table requesting 72 hours advance notice (!) of any intended edits. I would suggest that a better strategy, one which does not strongly smack of WP:OWN, would be to put detailed instructions here at the talk page on what the existing formatting is and how it works---but I think I figured it out anyway. -- Spireguy (talk) 03:34, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

I added some more, and soon the first table will be complete. I pulled a lot of the extra peaks out, but in case the entries are useful anywhere else, here they are:

I think I'm done correcting the first (height-based) list. At some point it should have inline cites to listsofjohn.com, like the peakbagger cites, but I'm not going to do that right now. I'll see if I have any time to look at the prom list. -- Spireguy (talk) 19:28, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

The prominence-based list is certainly much better than the height list was. I checked it with peaklist.org, and though it isn't identical, it has essentially the same peaks. So it isn't as high a priority for me to change that one.

I'll look at the isolation list now. I don't know if it's practical to try to make it accurate as a ranked list, given the lack of sources for such lists. Maybe we will have to leave it as a "selected peaks" list. -- Spireguy (talk) 19:43, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

See above for suggested changes to the 100 highest list. Also, there are several peaks that have been omitted from the 100-most prominent list, including Godzilla Peak (8010, P4860), Mount Ascension (5710, P4860), Peak 6150 (6150, P4837), Pyramid (7550, P4779), Mount Case (5550, P4700), Pestle Peak (5320, P4670), Kugukpak Peak (7382, P4659), Ford Terror Peak (5420, P4623), Takshanuk Peak (6755, P4605), Iceworm Peak (5850, P4600), Andy Simons Mountain (6407, P4557), Peabody Peak (5087, P4537), Bench Peak (5575, P4515), Mount Harper (6543, P4493), Mount Hendrickson (4590, P4459), Mount Merriam (5083, P4433), Poss Mountain (6380, P4425), Mount Gannett (10050, P4400), Kurupa Peak (7316, P4396), Mount Ada (4528, P4378), Echooka Peak (7374, P4324), and Mount Godwin (5860, P4310). There may well be others that I haven't identified. 24.237.111.224 (talk) 21:28, 18 July 2018 (UTC)Steve Gruhn phredakmtns@gmail.com.

The list of 100 highest peaks in Alaska that have a prominence of at least 500 meters is again WOEFULLY INACCURATE. Your list purports that the 100th highest summit in Alaska that has a prominence of at least 500 meters (1640.4 feet) is a mere 5710 feet. However, there are 114 Alaska peaks with prominences over 1640.4 feet that are over 10,000 feet in elevation. Whoever made this list doesn't know much about Alaska's mountains. The following peaks have been omitted for some unknown reason:  Mount Deception (11,826 feet; Prominence 2176 feet), Hornby Peak (11,645; P1995), Mount Tittmann (11,565; P2515), Mount Einstein (11,552; P2602), Tushman Peak (11,410; P1960), McGinnis Peak (11,400; P1650), Mount Gerdine (11,258; P3008), Turton Peak (11,191; P1641), Mount Talachulitna (11,150; P2500), Mount Balchen (11,140; P1990), Peak W-25 (11,090; P3040), Mount Spurr (11,070; P1920), Torkskey Peak (11,050; P1800), Icing Peak (10,955; P2005), Ultima Thule Peak (10,950; P2700), Belvoir Peak (10,950; P2100), Thurland Peak (10,950; P1700), Bricole Peak (10,910; P1760), Mount Wilbur (10,821; P2171), Camshaft Peak (10,755; P2405), Mount La Perouse (10,728; P2778), Mount Geist (10,720; P1670), Mount Porky (10,650; P1800), Bolingbroke Peak (10,635; P1785), Tarnworth Peak (10,630; P3280), Mount Goode (10,610; P2160), Peters Dome (10,600; P2550), Leasowe Peak (10,550; P2000), Mount Lodge (10,530; P2853), Caudal Peak (10,510; P2460), Mount Orville (10,495; P1745), Lifter Peak (10,486; P1736), Mount Eldridge (10,456; P1706), Peak W-17 (10,450; P1780), Mount Frances (10,450; P1700), Mount Sabine (10,405; P1955), Frederika Mountain (10,366; P2016), Grimsthorpe Peak (10,354; P1804), The Mooses Tooth (10,335; P3385), Confederacy Peak (10,270; P2320), Mount Dan Beard (10,260; P1735), and Peak W-36 (10,250; P1900). Other Alaska peaks over 10,000 feet and with prominences over 1640.4 feet include Peak Number 6 (10,239; P1889), Peakbagger (10,206; P2356), Mount Bertha (10,204; P3454), Castle Peak (10,190; P2340), Claxton Peak (10,150; P2300), Avalanche Spire (10,105; P2655), Caister Peak (10,105; P1655), Hussey Peak (10,092; P1842), Mount Gannett (10,050; P4400), Mount Laurens (10,042; P1892), and Peak W-19 (10,004; P1654). Prominences are based on interpolated key saddle elevations. 72.42.133.71 (talk) 01:57, 4 August 2021 (UTC)Steve Gruhn phredakmtns@gmail.com

Moby Dick
Is there any peak called like this in Alask? Because when you click on Moby Dick you go directly to the novel. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.45.199.190 (talk) 03:23, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, Moby Dick is a 12,360-foot peak in the Hayes Range of the Alaska Range. It's in the Black Rapids Glacier, Middle Prong Glacier, and Susitna Glacier drainages. Steve Gruhn sgruhn@clarus-ak.com.