Isolation North

Is there an accepted summit for this Trailwrights peak? Or better yet, a sign or canister? The land definitely looks higher west of the trail, but I couldn’t discern a herd path or even any indication at all that people have been fighting their way through the scrub and blowdowns to get off the trail to reach any particular place, and I didn’t have time to investigate. It was pretty thick the whole way.

And what about Gulf Peak? Is its summit the cairn in the open area along Glen Boulder Trail? My GPS seemed to show the summit as being somewhere well off to the east, on an entirely different bump, maybe, but the cairn in the open area seemed like the logical place to me.

I assume Boott Spur’s summit was the bolt.

Thanks.

Isolation North is marked with an "x" on USGS maps, meaning it was measured (4293 ft, a bit west of the trail). But neither NGS (http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/ds_radius.prl) nor Geocaching.com (sometimes includes marks that NOAA fails to include) show any kind of benchmark. I haven't been, but it's almost safe to assume that there was a canister at one time or another, though canisters are not always on the exact summit.

USGS GNIS lists Gulf Peak as the 4774' shoulder (it's not really a peak) at:
Sequence Latitude(DEC) Longitude(DEC) Latitude(DMS) Longitude(DMS) Map Name
1 44.2414550 -71.2903523 441429N 0711725W Stairs Mountain

That is indeed a well-worn wide spot on the Glen Boulder trail with a large cairn.

There's also a 4692' point to the southeast which is a bit more deserving of being called a peak, which is south of the trail.


For Boott Spur, GNIS has:

5459'

Sequence Latitude(DEC) Longitude(DEC) Latitude(DMS) Longitude(DMS) Map Name
1 44.2522880 -71.2950749 441508N 0711742W Mount Washington


That's the obvious bump by the junction of Boott Spur Trail and Davis Path. Don't recall seeing a bolt, but I've never searched. No benchmarks indicated in the two websites mentioned above.

Thanks.

More letters so this post is accepted.

I finally got around to transferring my GPS track into the computer, so I was able to get a closer look at the maps. The Garmin National Parks East map says that Gulf Peak is the 4692 bump, while the National Geographic Topo! says that Gulf Peak is the 4774 shoulder. The Topo! is the same as the USGS map, so I’ll go with that and call it climbed.

Thank you.

Raymond said:

The Garmin National Parks East map says that Gulf Peak is the 4692 bump, while the National Geographic Topo! says that Gulf Peak is the 4774 shoulder. The Topo! is the same as the USGS map, so I’ll go with that and call it climbed.

Click to expand...

I think you are being confused by a labeling error on Garmin National Parks East.

I have the above plus Garmin 24K NE*. All three give the same physical location (at least by eye--I didn't compare the lat-lon), but on the N'tl Pks E map Gulf Peak is mislabeled with an altitude of 4692. (Pt 4692 is .3 mi SSE of Gulf Peak.) Both NG Topo! and Garmin 24K NE give similar altitudes of 4750 and 4770 (from the included DEMs**) respectively.

* Garmin 24K NE (40 ft contours) is much better than N'tl Pks E (200 ft contours).
** Garmin N'tl Pks E doesn't include a DEM.

Only the Garmin N'tl Pks E map has a labeled altitude for Gulf Peak and it is incorrect...

My (digital) copy of USGS topo (Stairs Mtn, NH 24K quad, file name o44071b3.tif) agrees with NG Topo!, but that should be no surprise as the NG Topo! maps were generated from the USGS digital topo DRGs.

Note: the original Garmin 100K and Garmin 2008 100K topos have the peak correctly located with a labeled altitude of 4790 ft.

USGS Board on Geographic names http://geonames.usgs.gov/ identifies Gulf Peak as 441429N 0711725W, 4774 ft. (WGS84, [D]DDMMSS. Same location as the above.)

In conclusion, I think you can count it...


Note: A number of place markers on the Garmin maps are positioned somewhat inaccurately: if a place mark on USGS topo disagrees with one on a Garmin topo, the USGS topo is more likely to be correct. Some Garmin products are better than others...

(A suggestion: if you decide to get the Garmin 24K NE map, get the DVD version. A lot more maps for your money, you can use it on both your computer and GPS, and it is unlocked.)

Glossary for the acronym challenged:
DEM=digital elevation map
DRG=digital raster graphic (ie scanned map)

Doug

There was no man-made marker to be found last September for North Isolation. It is clear there is higher ground off the trail and there was some indication of where one may start.

I criss-crossed the area for a while so I'm pretty sure I found the highest point and no marker.

Tim

I agree with Tim for North Isolation. Several possible high points in that area -- no clue which one was 6 inches higher than the others, so we just went to all of them. No canisters or other markings of any kind were found. Andrew

Thanks. It seemed like it was pretty much all blowdowns through there. I wasn’t paying any attention to the GPS as I passed by, just eyeballing the terrain. I figured if I saw an obvious place where people had been going in, I would do so, too. If not, I’d worry about it another time.

By the time I got back to Pinkham Notch Visitor Center, it was past eight o’clock, so it was just as well I didn’t hunt around for the high point.