So now you bring Minnesota into the mix?? It’d better be a *very *clear day! :D:smack:
As a rule of thumb, the distance to the horizon is sqrt(1.5 x h) where h is the relative height of the peak. So for example, the plains to the north of Pikes Peak are about 6000’ giving a relative height of 8000’ That mean to the north one should see about 110 mi. Barely to my house (might need atmospheric refraction but no way to the COWY border.
But suppose you want to see another peak. The tricky part is to figure out the elevation of the each horizon point. If the distances to each horizon add up to a larger distance than the distance between the two points, they are visible to each other (even discounting refraction).
Sierra Grande is 160 miles from Pikes Peak has a relative height of 2200’. This means the elevation of the plain is about 6500’ and a distance to the horizon of about 57.5 miles. But 57.5 miles on a line from SG to PP is a spot that has an elevation of about 5600’. So let’s recalculate.
PP relative height 8500’ => DtH 113 mi
SG relative height 3100’ => DtH 63 mi
Since 113+63 > 160 we can conclude Sierra Grande is visible from Pikes Peak.
So let’s look at Wyoming. I would think the best chance is 150 mi. away near Red Mountain which has a relative height of 2400’ above the intervening plain. PP has a relative height of 9100’ so I get 117+60 > 150
So looking north look to the extreme right of the Front Range and you can probably see a ridge in Wyoming. Interestingly is that anything to the west of that point is blocked by the Colorado Front Range and to the east the plain is only 6000’ so it is an EXTREMELY small part of Wyoming visible from PP.
OK so we have CO, NM and WY. I’m willing to say that that is all you can see. OK, NE and KS are too flat and Guadalupe Peak (TX) is too far away at 480 miles.
I don’t think that site takes into account the curvature of the Earth.
I was going to say I’m not sure what method they’re using, because while it’s a good map for viewshed, there are a few points it seems to be missing in some locations.
At the site I linked to I did finally get the technical details at some point. The views are made by raytracing to all surrounding points. It alters the elevation of points by distance to account for curvature, but with a fixed refraction adjustment to bring them ‘up’ a bit. I think it was around 1/6 or 1/8 of the curvature adjustment.
That said, I’ve also noted that some of the cities marked on the panoramas are not exactly visible; the view is just to let you know where you are. So while I do think some of Wyoming is in fact visible, Cheyenne probably is not directly in sight of Pikes Peak.
I was curious about the details myself, so I dug around and found their Technical FAQ. Apparently they do take atmospheric refraction into account in a rather crude way, and they’re definitely taking a curved earth into account. If you want to see the line-of-sight on a curved earth on that site, create a panorama, select point in the viewshed, and then click on the “Parameters” link below. That’ll expand a link below that will allow you to switch to the line of sight on a curved Earth instead of a flat Earth.
Last weekend I was on a hill at 7500’ about 20 miles from the New Mexico border and Pikes Peak was visible but a bit blurry. Also I posted earlier that mathematically Pikes Peak should barely be visible from my house but on a clear day it is plainly visible. I’m suspecting both effects may be due to atmospheric refraction so maybe Pikes Peak is visible from Kansas re: F U Shakespeare’s post.
ETA: I may run up to Cheyenne later this month. If so I’ll see when PP goes below the horizon if I can.
While driving to my friend’s house in Colorado Springs from Kansas, I noticed that I was around 30 miles into Colorado before Pike’s Peak was viable. Perhaps in more clear conditions it would be, but I’ve never heard anyone from Kansas say they’ve seen Pike’s Peak from the border.
Would it have been visible sooner if you knew exactly where to look for it?
Were you on I70 or US40?
With that in mind are optical aids allowed? That may have made the difference in seeing the summit or not.
On the Georgia side of Lookout Mountain, there’s a tourist attraction called Rock City (You’ve probably seen the birdhouses, painted barns, billboards and bumper stickers all over most of the known galaxy). One spot in Rock City is “See 7 States.” It’s kind of a cheat–the states in that region of the US are smaller/closer together than the Pike’s Peak region. Plus, you’re standing in one of the seven.
Mount Sunflower, on the western border of Kansas, seems to have a view of some mountain tops to the west, and thats got to be Mt Pike if its not cloud or other illusion.
The view from Mount Sunflower only appears to reach 15 miles to the west, and Pikes Peak is well below the horizon. So my money would be on low clouds.