Chapter 7. Rakaposhi. Nanga Parbat.

I opened my new in-flight computer and raced to google those names and came up with a bouguet of gorgeous options, but never anything that talked about how they faced each other. But I saw some breathtaking photos all the same.

Photos of Nanga Parbat: http://www.pbase.com/waqas/nanga_parbat

And then I came on something very odd and interesting, as so many things are interesting when you wander into an unknown area of expertise and don't really understand what they're saying. However, this fellow, like so many with an intense love of something arcane, did a champion job of writing for the outsiders:
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An explanation of Spire Measure

Brief explanation (Back to the main spire measure page)

The idea of spire measure (SM) is to compare the summit of a peak (or perhaps a better reference point than the summit) to all surrounding points.

Here's a quick description of the SM calculation. It's really a measure of how impressive it is to stand at the top of the peak and look down. In fact, you can take any point on the Earth's surface and calculate an SM for it, which measures how impressive the view is from that point.

So, imagine that you are standing at some fixed reference point (say the top of Mt. Shuksan, which stands very high above nearby terrain and has a very impressive North Face). Look at all the points you can see, in all directions, at all distances. For each such point you will be looking down (or occasionally up) at some angle (or slope, easier to calculate). If there is a lot of area where that downward slope is large, you are at an impressive point on the Earth's surface. That's really the idea.

For example, standing on top of Shuksan, looking down the North face, you have to look very steeply down to see the bottom of the face and the valley below. That gives a good contribution to SM. Also, since it is high above the terrain in the range 5-15km away, when you look down at those points, you are looking down at a pretty fair angle--a steeper angle, anyway, than if you were standing on top of Elbert looking down at the valleys near it. So again Shuksan gets a good contribution from that terrain.
***********************(http://www.peaklist.org/spire/theory/expl.html)****************************

You have to admit, that's lovely, the way he talks to us. I think I even get it.

[bookmarked a bunch more, which I'll bring in soon, and some excerpts in email, which will also come in soon.]

MORE TO COME