Back to Table of Contents Back to Theory Page


Section 9:    Isolation

Isolation is a fun conceptual tool, somewhat independent of prominence theory.  Isolation is the measure, proposed by Greg Slayden, of the distance in miles from a summit to anything higher.

Say that you were standing on a summit as the sea level rises around you.  At the point that the rising ocean reaches the summit on which you stand, how far would you have to swim to reach the first speck of dry land?

That dry land may be on the slope of your summit's next-higher neighbor, or it may in an entirely different direction.  Isolation need not equate to the distance across a key saddle, as shown in the following figure, where I(x) equals the isolation value for Summit X.  Isolation corresponds to the radius of the largest circle for which a summit is the highest point.  All summits, except Mt. Everest, have an isolation value.

I-value

Greg Slayden and Aaron Maizlish researched the isolation of summits in contiguous United States and found 41 peaks with an isolation value of 100 miles or more.  Worldwide, Greg has found 42 peaks with 1,000+ miles of isolation; a list that correlates somewhat to the list of high prominence mountains, but with the inclusion of several low summits on remote islands or in low-relief parts of the world.  Extensive isolation tables can be found at www.peakbagger.com.  This would be a good completion list for the truly cluastrophobic.

TABLE:  WORLD SUMMITS WITH AT LEAST 1,000 MILES ISOLATION
provisional list by Greg Slayden

Rk.
Summit
High Point of...
Isolation Value
(miles)




1.
Mt. Everest
HP World
not applicable
2.
Aconcagua
HP The Americas
10267
3.
Mt. McKinley
HP North America
4631
4.
Kilimanjaro
HP Africa
3503
5.
Puncak Jaya
HP New Guinea
3266
6.
Vinson Massif
HP Antarctica
3066
7.
Mont Orohena
HP Tahiti
2566
8.
Mauna Kea
HP Hawaii
2453
9.
Gunnbjørn Fjeld
HP Greenland
2022
10.
Mt. Cook
HP New Zealand
1951
11.
Thabana Ntlenyana
HP Lesotho (Southern Africa)
1871

Maunga Terevaka
HP Easter Island
1763
12.
Mont Blanc
HP France
1751
13.
Piton des Neiges
HP Reunion
1720
14.
Klyuchevskaya Sopka
HP Kamchatka Peninsula
1713
15.
Pico de Orizaba
HP Mexico
1670
16.
Queen Mary's Peak
HP Saint Helena
1659
17.
Mt. Whitney
HP California (Lower 48)
1647
18.
Kota Kinabalu
HP Borneo
1568
19.
Pico de Bandeira
HP Brazilian Highlands
1493
20.
Mt. Cameroun
HP Cameroon (West Africa)
1453
21.
Mt. Paget
HP South Georgia Island
1410
22.
Mauga Silisili
HP Samoa
1394
23.
Nevado Huascarán
HP Peru
1365
24.
Anai Mudi
HP Ghats, India
1338
25.
Jebel Toubkal
HP Atlas, Morocco
1292
26.
Mt. Fuji
HP Japan
1277
27.
Emi Koussi
HP Chad
1244
28.
Yu Shan
HP Taiwan
1230
29.
Mawson Peak
HP Heard Island (Indian Ocean)
1194
30.
Mt. Mitchell
HP Eastern United States
1189
31.
Gunung Kerinci
HP Sumatera
1187
32.
Agrihan High Point
HP Northern Marianas
1181
33.
Mt. Kosciuszko
HP Australia, continental
1178
34.
Moro de Moco
HP Angola
1154
35.
Olavtoppen
HP Bouvetoya (South Atlantic island)
1154
36.
Jarvis High Point
HP Jarvis Island (Central Pacific)
1151
37.
Swart Peak
HP Prince Edward Island (South Indian Ocean)
1148
38.
Green Mountain
HP Ascension Island
1145
39.
Gora Narodnaya
HP Urals, Russia
1141
40.
Damavand
HP Iran
1101
41.
Pico de Cano
HP Cape Verde
1042
42.
Mt. Liebig
HP Northern Territory, Australia
1016

 

Isolation, of course, correlates pretty well to prominence and to lists of high points of political entities, as they measure different aspects of the same phenomenon, a vertical protuberance on the earth's surface.  Prominence is purely a height function, and isolation is purely a distance function.

Low mid-oceanic islands can have high isolation values and low prominence, as evidenced by the appearance of Tristan da Cunha and Easter Island on the worldwide list.  The U.S. list has some isolated low rises too:  Sugarloaf Mtn., the high point of the central Florida peninsula (E=311, P=275) is the twelfth most isolated "summit" in the U.S. at 211 miles. 

Of the 40 most isolated summits in the U.S., 20 are also among the 57 most prominent (P>5,000'), and 29 have P>2,000'.  19 of the 41 are also state highpoints.

(End of essay, for now)


Back to Table of Contents Back to Theory Page