BS: Mountains ???

Subject: BS: Mountains ???
From: jimlad9
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 04:53 AM

In the song 'Manchester Rambler' there are several mentions of Mountains ostensibly by a rambler in the Derbyshire Peak District. Now the highest point in the Peak District NP is Kinder Scout (636m) so do people in countries with REAL mountains smile in the same way as folks in counties with REAL snow smile when they hear about the British transport system being brought to a halt whenever 50mm of snow covers our road and rail systems.

Of course if the aforesaid 50mm of snow falls in London then that is a national crisis.

Even the Scots with their Munro's 283 @ 914m ( a good days stroll for an Englishman) have a better claim to the word mountain. I wonder what the Dutch claim are mountains in their wonderful country?.

BTW John Willie Lees brewery have produced a fine beer called 'Manchester Rambler'. I sampled a few in Weatherspoons at Fleetwood last week and my missus said I was rambling for days afterwards.

Subject: RE: BS: Mountains ???
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 05:00 AM

I don't understand this metres lark. A mountain is classified as a hill that is over 2036ft. Snaefell on the Isle of Man qualifies by just 4ft.

If it's taller than Snaefell, it's a mountain.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Mountains ???
From: Splott Man
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 07:08 AM

I thought that traditionally, a hill had to be over 1000ft to be a mountain.
Hence the twmp on top of The Garth, north of Cardiff, and the tower on Leith Hill in Surrey, bringing them up to that height.
Maybe the rules have been changed since my youth.

Mind you, I wouldn't call the latter a mountain, but only because it doesn't FEEL like a mountain. Personally, I think there has to be an element of ruggedness.

Subject: RE: BS: Mountains ???
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 07:09 AM

An element of ruggedness? That makes MudGuard a mountain then! He's certainly tall enough.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Mountains ???
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 07:27 AM

I wonder what the Dutch claim are mountains in their wonderful country?.

I'll ask Remco, but the highest point in Holland is the 322m high Vallserberg, and I assume berg has the same translation from Dutch as it does German, being hill or mountain, and if I remember correctly, Thomas Manns Die Zauberberg (The magic Mountain) took it's title from a hill outside Lubeck, of just over 100m. Everything is relative I suppose.

Subject: RE: BS: Mountains ???
From: Rapparee
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 08:46 AM

I live in the hills, at about 5,000 feet. The city is at 4,400 feet. The highest point in the state is about 16,000 ft. Y'all come see us sometime....

Subject: RE: BS: Mountains ???
From: jimlad9
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 09:52 AM

I was walking in Leicestershire one evening and walked up what I took to be a ramp for disabled people.it led to what a metal plaque told me was the highest point in Leicestershire
c120m if I remember correctly. I bet the Dutch feel smug now Bunnhabahain.

Subject: RE: BS: Mountains ???
From: beardedbruce
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 09:59 AM

When I was working in Boulder, CO (6000 ft), one of my fellow employees lived in the foothills- at 12,000 ft. She was working on her private pilot's license- but was not allowed to fly above 10,000 ft since the plane did not have an oxygen system. Didn't keep her from driving home each day...

Subject: RE: BS: Mountains ???
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 10:26 AM

Mountains are relative, as remarks in this thread illustrate. I grew up with the Cascade and the Olympic Mountains in Washington as my stomping ground, so the foothills in the valleys (that were the size of mountains in places like New England) were hills by comparison. But when I lived places like New York State where the Catskills and other ancient ranges I visited were, as I observed, much lower and not glaciated like the youthful Cascades, it took some perspective to realize that they still needed the respect with which one approaches mountains in general. They do affect the weather, they are places where people can get lost, hurt, or killed. They do the geological and biological work of mountains.

I've lived in Tennessee where the Smokey Mountains are a lot like the western slopes of the Cascades in places, in that they are very wet and so heavily covered with vegetation that climbing is a soggy green bushwhack if you're off of the trail. Here in Texas there are some formidable and much drier mountains in the western side of the state, Guadalupe, and peaks in Big Bend National Park, and beautiful isolated ones like the Davis Mountains (site of McDonald Observatory). Again, biologically these are very important, and you can get yourself into trouble if you don't respect the nature of these mountains.

In south central Oklahoma is a mounded hill called Rainy Mountain. Culturally it is immense to the Kiowa Indians who live in the region and it has been invested with cultural and religious significance that is understood by the local population but probably ignored by outsiders passing through the area. It would be an afternoon walk to the top and back again. Because it stands out by itself, it is a mountain to the eyes of a plains dweller.   

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Mountains ???
From: MMario
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 10:34 AM

Is it Sunflower mountain in Ohio or Illinois that is nothing more then an almost imperceptable gentle rise in the center of a cornfield?

highest point in the state - wherever it is.

Subject: RE: BS: Mountains ???
From: artbrooks
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 10:47 AM

We are a bit higher than Rapaire. Albuquerque is "officially" 5000 feet, but that is at the absolute nadir of the Rio Grande River valley. I live at about 6000 feet - the tram to the top of our mountain is about 3 miles away, at 7000 feet, and it goes up to about 10,500. Pretty puny as mountains go around here.

Subject: RE: BS: Mountains ???
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 10:50 AM

Sandia is a pretty drive. I've always enjoyed that one, though I had a huge allergy attack up there one year when the junipers were pumping out pollen.

Subject: RE: BS: Mountains ???
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 10:54 AM

I always thought 1000 metres is the cutoff point between hills and mountains. By this standard, the whole of the UK is flatland with a few bumps. Or - if you can still see individual people at the bottom, you are not standing on a mountain.

Subject: RE: BS: Mountains ???
From: beardedbruce
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 10:58 AM

Hoye-Crest, Backbone Mountain, Maryland, 3,360 Feet

http://www.americasroof.com/md.html

Subject: RE: BS: Mountains ???
From: GUEST,Dr Sam Johnson
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 11:27 AM

Ben Nevis is merely a considerable protruberence.

Subject: RE: BS: Mountains ???
From: Midchuck
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 11:30 AM

Some people have made a project of bagging the highest peak in every state of the US. I think the range is from 85 feet to 20,000+ feet.

Peter.

Subject: RE: BS: Mountains ???
From: beardedbruce
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 11:35 AM

Country       High       Feet Meter Lat N/S Long E/W
Continent Height Rank                                                World Height Rank

United Kingdom Ben Nevis 4406 1343 56.80 N -5.01 W   
30      
149

Subject: RE: BS: Mountains ???
From: Rapparee
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 11:49 AM

The highest point in the US is Denali (Mt. McKinley), which is also the highest point in North America. I understand that you have to be in decent shape to climb it, but that it's not (bearing weather in mind) a particularly difficult climb. Mt. Borah, the highest point in Idaho, is much the same.

Since I am not in decent shape I flew around McKinley in a small plane and ignored Borah (although it IS a pretty mountain).

Subject: RE: BS: Mountains ???
From: Ebbie
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 12:20 PM

Rap, you and I have been here before. There is NO WAY to equate Denali and Mt. Borah. The summit of Borah (12,662 feet) can be reached in 5 HOURS, Denali's summit (20,320 feet) somewhere between 16 and 22 DAYS, even though the climb BEGINS AT 7,200 feet. Denali requires roped climbing, crampons and ice axes.

Not that I'm fierce about it, or anything.

Subject: RE: BS: Mountains ???
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 12:20 PM

Going by SRS's definition, the UK has mountains. They're big enough to affect the weather, and are big enough for people to get lost and killed in them every year.

Subject: RE: BS: Mountains ???
From: Rapparee
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 02:50 PM

'Sokay, Bunn. They're mostly English.

Subject: RE: BS: Mountains ???
From: KB in Iowa
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 03:09 PM

I have a mountain in my back yard. It is inhabited by a furry creature with a longish snout and rather dim eyesight.

Subject: RE: BS: Mountains ???
From: Ebbie
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 03:43 PM

hahaha, Rap. You are incorrigible.

Subject: RE: BS: Mountains ???
From: beardedbruce
Date: 16 Feb 07 - 03:53 PM

Please don't incorrige him...