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Wednesday, May 21, 2008

"Local Maxima and other Geographical Oddities"

by Gary Clark - Bio

One of the most common games climbers play is the quest for high points (or "local maxima" in the mathematical idiom familiar to many Los Alamos residents).  These high points may have great geographical significance or be rather arbitrary based on political boundaries.  Or both; an example is (63.06989 N / 151.073 W) - the highest point of North America, the Alaska Range, the United States, and the state of Alaska.  A point of much less significance is typified by (43.46050 N / 95.7083 W), the highest point of Iowa, which happens to be at the end of a cattle watering trough on a family farm.  To the dedicated "high-pointer", both are worthy objectives.


Climbers near the High Point of British Columbia

A natural, but still arbitrary, game for residents of the Rocky Mountain region is the quest for all the summits above 14,000feet in the Range.  The fact that they all occur in Colorado makes it also a quest for the highest points of that state. Participants in this game are typically termed "peak-baggers."


View from the Top of New Jersey

This talk will describe a quest to reach local maxima on the earth's surface, as well as a few other geographical oddities, such as high points of other countries and compass extremes.  The speaker is betting that no other Los Alamos Mountaineer has been to the centroid of the United States, so there should be something new in this talk for everyone.

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