Mt Elbert Survey, Colorado Highpoint

Mt Elbert Survey, Colorado Highpoint

May 23, 2026

Eric Gilbertson, Rob Painter, Matt Sewick

5am – 6pm, 10 miles, 4.5kft gain

Results: Mt Elbert summit is 14,439.45ft +/-0.04ft (NAD83 2011 Epoch 2010 NAVD88 Geoid 18)

Location (39.1177295861, -106.445353442)

(Note: elevation in beta version of NAPGD2022 Geoid19B, the upcoming new US standard, is 14,437.5ft according to OPUS).

Mount Elbert is the highest mountain in Colorado, but there was uncertainty in its exact elevation. I think it’s important that the elevation of every state highpoint be known to the nearest foot or better. Mount Elbert was first surveyed by the USGS in 1894 when a monument was placed on the summit (source – NGS datasheet https://www.ngs.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/ds_mark.prl?PidBox=KL0637 ). In 1906 it was surveyed again at 14,421ft, with nearby Mt Massive surveyed at 14,424ft, meaning Mt Massive was thought to be the state highpoint then.  In 1935 the USGS conducted a new survey and found Elbert 14,430ft and Mt Massive 14,419ft (NGVD29 vertical datum), meaning Elbert was actually the state highpoint. (Source: https://www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org/?a=d&d=RMD19350926-01.2.317 ) During this survey two additional monuments were placed on Elbert, “Rim 1” 71ft to the north and “Rim 2” 20ft to the south of the summit monument.

There was debate for decades about which peak was actually higher, and proponenents of Mt Massive would build cairns on its summit to artificially make it higher, while proponents of Mt Elbert would later knock the cairns down. According to the NGS datasheet for the Mt Elbert monument (https://www.ngs.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/ds_mark.prl?PidBox=KL0637) USGS conducted another survey in 1953 using traditional leveling methods, and found Mt Elbert 14,433ft (NGVD29). This appeared to mark the end of the Massive-Elbert debate. This was the last ground survey to date.

In 1993 the USGS updated the vertical datum for the US to NAVD88, and this resulted in the elevation of Mt Elbert being shifted to 14,440ft, though no additional ground survey was conducted.

In 2014 a geocaching team attempted to find the original summit monument, but reported that it was missing and only the Rim 2 monument could be located.

In 2021 USGS commissioned airplane-based LiDAR measurements to be taken over Colorado. These were analyzed to find an elevation of 14,438ft NAVD88 for the summit. LiDAR measurements are taken at discrete points with gaps 3ft-10ft in between, and I’ve found vertical errors on mountain summits can be +/-1.7ft for manually-processed data (95% confidence interval, source https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/03091333251401361 ).

With all of these different elevation numbers existing in different sources, there has understandably been confusion about the elevation of Mt Elbert. (See, for instance, this 2025 discussion on the 14ers.com facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/82338447841/posts/10162038474467842/ )

Since the late 1980s satellite-based GPS and GNSS equipment has been available and used to survey mountains around the world with 0.1ft vertical accuracy or better. However, Mt Elbert had never been surveyed with this equipment. I decided to fix that, so the elevation of Mt Elbert could be known to the nearest 0.1ft and any uncertainty could be resolved.

I’d previously climbed Mt Elbert twice before. In 2009 I climbed it with Matthew while we worked on a project to climb all the US state highpoints (finishing in 2012). In 2020 I climbed it as part of setting the self-supported FKT for the Colorado Centennials, and the FKT for the Rocky Mountain Slam. Back then I wasn’t into surveying, so I didn’t take any elevation measurements. Also, sitting around for 4 hours on a summit and hauling 30 pounds of surveying equipment wouldn’t be too helpful with an FKT time.

This time my plan was to take two Trimble DA2 GNSS units and mount one on the highest monument and one on the highest natural rock. I would use the monument measurement to update the NGS datasheet, and the measurement on the highest rock to find the true elevation of Mt Elbert (note: monuments are generally placed near but not exactly on the highest point of a peak). NGS requires a minimum of 4 hours of data for the monument measurement to be accepted, so that’s how long I would log data.

Trimble CEO Rob Painter and Matt Sewick would join me to help haul up equipment and take measurements.

I tried to find pictures of the highest monument online to help locate it, but could only find pictures of the Rim 1 and Rim 2 monuments. On one forum post someone said they thought there were three monuments up there, but no pictures were provided of the summit monumnent. The 2014 entry on the NGS datasheet said the summit monument was not found. So this made me think there was a chance it had been stolen. I know from experience surveying Rainier five times that summit monuments on significant peaks tend to get stolen. The Rainier monument has been stolen and replaced at least three times. I hoped Elbert might be different.

Friday after work I flew from Seattle to Denver, arriving at midnight. By 1am I picked up my rental vehicle from Thrifty. They only had a Dodge Ram 2500 Heavy Duty, even though I’d paid for a small 2wd car. At least that meant I could make it up to any 4wd trailheads after Elbert. I drove to the standard Mt Elbert trailhead on the north side by 3:45am, then started sorting gear.

By 4:30am Rob, Matt, and I were heading up along with a bunch of other people. We got a lot of questions about the big tripods we were hauling up, and we explained we were surveying the summit elevation. By 8:30am we reached the top, and unfortunately for us there were 1-2ft of fresh snow compacted to ice blanketing the summit. This was kind of surprising, since the last report I’d seen on 14ers.com from a week early had said it was snow free. I guess I hadn’t kept close enough tabs on the weather beforehand.

The first order of business was to find the highest monument, KL0637, on the summit. I got the coordinates from the NGS datasheet and we started digging with my whippet and crampons. It was kind of slow going getting through the ice. In hindsight if we had known about the conditions we would have brought shovels and ice axes.

We searched for over an hour, but couldn’t find the monument. I concluded it was most likely stolen. We located the Rim 1 monument (location 39.11791, -106.44524), exposed and far to the north. I knew the Rim 2 monument would be the highest existing one, though, and it would make the most sense to survey that. The NGS datasheet had its approximate location with distance and angle from the summit monument coordinates. I had a few pictures of it and Matt found even better pictures that Grace at Trimble managed to find and email us on the summit (thanks!). We dug for another hour and finally found it, with the text “Mt Elbert 1935 Rim 2”. (location 39.1176596111, -106.44538715).

I mounted the tripod with 2m antenna rod on the monument and started logging data at 11:30am. It was pretty windy so we laid rocks on the tripod legs to support them. I then went to the obvious highest boulder next to the summit cairn and confirmed with my sight level that it was the highest point around other than the summit cairn. The boulder was too big for any of us to move, so this meant it was most likely natural. Because of the high wind I mounted the other DA2 on a 1.0ft antenna rod with the second tripod, with more rocks stabilizing the legs. I started logging data for that one around 11:45am.

Rob then headed down while Matt and I stayed around guarding the equipment. Luckily the wind didn’t knock anything down. At one point I tried to take a nap behind a rock wall, but it was tough in the cold wind. When I finally dozed off I was quickly woken up by a chipmunk nibbling on my hand. I think I managed a full 10 minutes of nap, which was considerably better than 0 minutes I’d gotten the previous night. But I then gave up on sleeping and hung out on the summit talking to other hikers.

After the 4 hour window passed we packed and headed down, making it back to the trailhead by 6pm. I then drove 5 hours south to my next trailhead to work on surveying centennial peaks to break a five-way tie for number 100.

I processed the data with OPUS and TrimbleRTX, which gave consistent results. OPUS is the legal standard in the US, so I’ll report those results. The highest rock on Mt Elbert was 14,439.45ft +/-0.04ft (95% confidence interval for measurement error). The Rim 2 monument is 14,434.80ft +/-0.10ft. Both results are NAD83 2011 Epoch 2010 NAVD88 Geoid 18, the standard OPUS output.

Interestingly, the LiDAR point cloud data show how the cairn near the summit was picked up at 14,439.7ft, and several points were picked up around 14,442ft. These higher points were likely people. The LiDAR data missed the top of the boulder marking the highest point of the mountain, though. The LiDAR – derived summit elevation was manually processed to remove likely cairns and people, but since the boulder was missed by LiDAR this meant the elevation was an underestimate.

The measured elevation is about 0.5ft lower than the USGS measurement, which isn’t too surprising given the USGS measurement was rounded to the nearest foot and likely had some error.

I’m working on submitting the monument measurement to the NGS database so that can be updated.

Note: the elevation in the beta version of NAPGD2022 Geoid19B, the upcoming new US standard, is 14,437.5ft according to OPUS.

Raw measurement files can be downloaded here: https://github.com/ericgilbertson1/MtElbert

 

 

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