Mt. Mansfield "nose" question

When I went and hiked Mansfield, VT this summer, you may have read my exciting trip report, I was told by a ranger on the "chin" that the "nose" was closed due to the radio towers emitting dangerous levels of radiation, so too dangerous for trodding. He said the towers were to come down by next year. So I followed the LT around it to the west. Oh well, can't check off that peak now. (Good time otherwise.)

Well, I happened to read some forums on Rocks on Top and it seems people are actually going up there.

Whats the deal? Anyone have the real deal about it. Are they just trying to make sure vandals keep away or is the risk real?

DaveG. - I usually trust the rangers word.

I think the risk of radiation is just above the risk of alien abduction. It's there, just not too high. Stowe just wants to protect it's assets from stoned, angry hippies. AIG is the owner of the resort though, so maybe the new impending management will do something with the towers. If you have a few million bucks you can soon buy the mountain.

Radiation from transmission towers can be hazardous if the power levels at your location are high enough. (The limits depend upon the frequencies.) I have no idea if levels along the trail are high enough to be dangerous.

In any case, I wouldn't loiter in the area.

Doug

BlackBuffalo said:

... So I followed the LT around it to the west. Oh well, can't check off that peak now.

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Not sure what trail you took up to the ridgeline, but the actual summit is to the north (forehead), not the south, where the microwave towers are. Either way, am not sure what prevented you for summiting, as the LT runs the entire ridge.

When I went up to "The Nose" two weeks ago today (note I did not make it over to the forehead, but Steve and Christa did), I followed the LT from the Visitor's Center atop the auto road and it dropped me on another road, which I followed, looking for the LT to continue. Eventually I came up around the back side of the nose where all the towers were. There was a blue-blazed trail marked with small cairns. I followed it coming out atop The Nose where all the towers were. Once there, you do see lots of antennae with warnings printed on them. As the blue blazes led down the far side (back toward the visitor's center) I continued down that area rather quickly. At the bottom of that trail was a pile of brush and a mangled old sign which I couldn't turn over but it looked like a drawing of an antennae, and possibly a warning. There were several worker's pickups at the summit buildings and one guy gave me a glance but said nothing.

See here: http://www.vftt.org/forums/showthread.php?t=25307

Here's (what is left of) the benchmark on The Nose:

Which would seem to indicate it was a summit or highpoint of some sort.

Tim

My route 7/25 was LT south from 108, adams apple, Chin to the forehead.
From the parking area near the vistiors center the trail went toward the nose, through the woods ended up on a road. This ran west of the nose. Then the trail dropped right. There was a clear diversion away from the nose then.

I saw that turn, but I did not see a sign, and wondered if that was "it".

Tim

Well, I don't consider myself a real peakbagger, but the Nose as I last heard lists at number 19 in VT. (I could be wrong.)

I hope one day it will be bare rock.

http://www.peakbagger.com/peak.aspx?pid=7014

Only 160 feet of clean prominence.

Tim

ok, so if you continue on the road instead of turning right and following the LT south, you come to a building for the TV station. The road goes around it and further up. Around the other side of the building, about halfway to the top is a sign that says the area beyond has RF radiation that exceeds FCC safety levels. Just before the very top there is a no trespassing sign, so that's where I turned around. I didn't see any before that point. I hadn't been to the Nose before, so I didn't know any better. It's funny that Tim didn't see the sign for the LT south and I didn't see the blue-blazed path that he took.

ps
check some other 4ks. 160' clean is all you need. Unless you're South Hancock, and then you only need 159'.

SteveHiker said:

ps
check some other 4ks. 160' clean is all you need. Unless you're South Hancock, and then you only need 159'.

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Peakbagger.com uses a 160' clean prominence criteria for their northeastern USA lists to handle the 40' contour intervals on some White Mountain maps. With 40' intervals 160' clean prominence is equivalent to the standard 200' col rise used on by the AMC 4000' committee. And note, the AMC committee is the authority for the New England 4000' list, not Peakbagger.com (although the Peakbagger lists are in general very good).

On the Mount Mansfield maps the interval is 20', so 160' clean prominence is equivalent to only a 180' rise: summit contour of the Nose is 4020' and the key col contour is 3840'. So the Nose does not qualify per the AMC 4000' committee rules, at least as I understand their rules.

Someone else will have to explain South Hancock and Guyot perhaps. I will defer to Roy, Mohamed, or other knowledgeable AMC spokesperson.

I mentioned it somewhere, I'll repeat it here. The Nose had lots of those plastic flags around a point well within the range of the antennae, and they were in reasonably good shape.

As for the danger, given the proximity of the Nose summit access road (to the TV station) to the auto road "summit" and visitor's center, I would think they would post it better or even gate it if there was a serious health issue.

None-the-less, I have no reason to return. Nice views from up there, I will say, but not that much better than from the access road and the Nosedive ski trail on the top of the descent.

Tim

The Nose is in any case a named summit which I have twice hiked the blue trail over


Feature Feature Id Clas County Latitude Longitude State Map Ele(m)* Ele(ft)* BGN Entry Date
The Nose 1459877 Summit Lamoille 443134N 0724854W VT Mount Mansfield 1228 4029 - 29-OCT-1980

Mark Schaefer said:

Peakbagger.com uses a 160' clean prominence criteria for their northeastern USA lists to handle the 40' contour intervals on some White Mountain maps.

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That's why I think avarage prominence is a better measure. That's what peaklist.org uses.

Someone else will have to explain South Hancock and Guyot perhaps. I will defer to Roy, Mohamed, or other knowledgeable AMC spokesperson.

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I'm not affiliated with the AMC, but the story is that on the 15' maps from which the original list was made (see docs.unh.edu) S Hancock had a col and Guyot didn't. When new 7.5' maps came out, the 4k Club decided not to add Guyot (a good decision IMHO as it has 2 ~200' cols) and not to remove S Hancock (a poor decision IMHO but it's their game).

bikehikeskifish said:

As for the danger, given the proximity of the Nose summit access road (to the TV station) to the auto road "summit" and visitor's center, I would think they would post it better or even gate it if there was a serious health issue.

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I read the warning sign, but don't remember exactly what it said. The gist was that it exceeded acceptable values for workplaces. So I would think that the danger would be minimal for a brief visit like ours was. If you worked up there, that would be a different story. Of course, the sign was pretty small and was white letters on a faded blue background. It didn't really stand out. I agree that if it was serious they'd mark it better.

ps
thanks for the clarification Mark. I hadn't considered the contour interval. Makes sense to me.

Might explain why I glow in the dark after my July 5th ascent. Don't need a flashlight after dark now.

SteveHiker said:

I read the warning sign, but don't remember exactly what it said. The gist was that it exceeded acceptable values for workplaces. So I would think that the danger would be minimal for a brief visit like ours was. If you worked up there, that would be a different story. .

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IIRC, workplace exposures would be for 8 hrs.

Presumably, someone walked around with a field strength meter and the boundary marks the allowable 8 hr field strength. Radio wave power densities drop off with the inverse square of the distance (ie half the distance, four times the power; third the distance, nine times the power etc). So field strengths inside the boundary could be much higher than the 8 hr limit.

RF radiation damage exhibits reciprocity failure. (That is, twice the exposure at half the time may not be equivalent to a level of exposure for one unit of time.) Thus a short exposure to a higher field may induce more damage than might be expected. Yes, for a constant field strength level shorter exposures may induce less damage than longer exposures, but you do not know what the exposure levels are inside the boundary.

RF radiation damage can include burns, heating, cataracts, temporary sterility in males, and is suspected as a cause of cancer. (An individual may not feel anything while exposed and the effects may only appear after a long delay.) For instance, when you put a piece of meat in a microwave oven* you expose it to a few hundreds of watts of RF confined in a shielded box. Commercial radio and TV transmission powers can be up to ~500KW.

IMO, the prudent course of action is to stay outside the marked boundary and to minimize my time in the general area.

* The frequency used by microwave ovens (2.4GHz) is chosen to maximize the heating of objects containing water. The shielded box is designed to keep the leakage to acceptable limits--the primary risks would be cataracts and temporary sterility. FWIW, I prefer to keep some distance between my microwave oven and my body when using it.

Doug

Mark Schaefer said:

On the Mount Mansfield maps the interval is 20', so 160' clean prominence is equivalent to only a 180' rise: summit contour of the Nose is 4020' and the key col contour is 3840'. So the Nose does not qualify per the AMC 4000' committee rules, at least as I understand their rules.

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According to the GMC, among others, the summit elevation of the Nose is 4062'.

And, the warning signs say that the radiation exceeds Canadian standards. I have it on good word that GMC caretakers have felt warmed after spending time on the summit.

TEO said:

Mark Schaefer said:

On the Mount Mansfield maps the interval is 20', so 160' clean prominence is equivalent to only a 180' rise: summit contour of the Nose is 4020' and the key col contour is 3840'. So the Nose does not qualify per the AMC 4000' committee rules, at least as I understand their rules.

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According to the GMC, among others, the summit elevation of the Nose is 4062'.

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I was reading the contour elevations from the current USGS Mt Mansfield quad (available via the online mapping websites). After seeing Roy's post I checked the Benchmark Details for PG1699, the Nose and it does show the 4062' elevation. I don't know the history of the benchmark measurements versus the contour lines other than what is on the datasheet.

Someone who more familiar with history of the surveys will need to sort this out. The 3840' col elevation is corresponds to the 4020' summit elevation, and may not be correspond to the 4062' elevation. One would need to know the col elevation that corresponds to the 4062' summit measurement to make a consistent assessment of whether the Nose has a 200' col rise from Mt Mansfield and whether it qualifies for the 4K list.

king tut said:

AIG is the owner of the resort though, so maybe the new impending management will do something with the towers. If you have a few million bucks you can soon buy the mountain.

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Actually tut it looks like you, I, and the rest of us on this board might be buying it...when's the first management meeting?

I just put in a bid to Henry Paulson to buy the resort. Thinking about taking the towers down on the top of the mountain and replacing them with a fried chicken restaurant.