Review of SOTA Qualifying Summit

Review of SOTA Qualifying Summits in the F/NO Region (Details)

Some time ago someone drew our attention to some of the F/NO summits that did not appear to qualify as P150. This led to a detailed review of all of the listed SOTA summits in that region. The basis for the review was a series of IGN 25k contour maps on which the P150 criterion was examined and the findings are detailed in the following paragraphs. We have made a number of attempts to contact the Association Manager and the NO Region Manager to discuss these without success. So we have no alternative but to plan the de-activation of non-compliant summits

NO-009, NO-010, NO-011, NO-015 and NO-020.

In the Finistere region we find NO-009 385m, NO-010 385m , NO-011 384m, NO-015 372m, and NO-020 339m. These summits are mostly around the 380m height so for 150m prominence we'd expect cols between them dropping below 235-230. roughly. On an IGN 25k Map one can able to draw a line along the 325m contour and it contains all of NO-009, NO-010, NO-011, No-015, and NO-020 which would indicate perhaps a prominence of 60m max. An examination of the drop between NO-009 and NO-010 shows that they are both encompassed within the same 375m contour thus indicating a maximum of 10m prominence.

If we next move down to and draw a line along the 250m contour - remember we have to get cols down to 230m-235m for P150 - we find that it contains the summits already referred to above along with NO-012 383m and NO-013 381m. So this would indicate that there is no 150 prominence amongst any of these summits and while NO-009 would qualify the remainder NO-010, NO-011, NO-012, NO-013, NO-015 and NO-020 would not.

NO-001 and NO-002

When we examined is the pair NO-001 523m and NO-002 520m we found that the 500m contours surrounding each of these almost touch and there is actually a spot height of 499 in between. So the drop between the two is about 24m from NO-001 or 21m from NO-002 certainly not anything like the 150 metres required for qualification, so NO-002 would not qualify

NO-003, NO-005, NO-007, NO-014 and NO-029

We examined the cluster NO-003 489m, NO-005 408m, NO-007 398m, NO-014 376m, NO-029 424m. The route from NO-005 to NO-003 drops briefly to about 405m but never drops below 400m and then climbs steadily up hill all the way to NO-003 i.e. the drop from NO-005 in a path to NO-003 is certainly less than10m and closer to 5m. The co-ordinates given for NO-029 are strange as they are actually on a slope approaching a spot height of 424m (the listed height) but lies down hill and to the west of a spot height of 448m, From here the route from NO-029 to NO-003 does not drop below 440m all the way. From NO-007 walking north towards NO-029 the ground drops briefly to about 384m and then rises to 405m followed by a short drop to 391m from where it rises steadily to the spot height of 448m already mentioned. The route from NO-014 376m to NO-003 has a lowest point of about 275m about 1.9 km from NO-014 and then rises steadily up hill for the rest of the way to NO-003. What this would indicate for this cluster is that while NO-003 will qualify at P150, the four summits NO-005, NO-007, NO-014 and NO-029 do not qualify.

NO-008 and NO-019

A pair for our focus was NO-008 396m and NO-019 360m. Here we find that a single 350m contour encompasses them both so the drop from NO-019 to N-008 will not exceed 10m. Also the co-ordinates for NO-008 look rather odd as they are to the East of the summit by quite a lot.

NO-017 and NO-039

For the pair NO-017 368m and NO-039 327m, if we simply draw a straight line between the two we need to find a height of 177m (i.e. 327-150) for NO-039 to qualify at P150 but the lowest points along such a line is are at 195m at -0.88232, 48.71073 and -0.88737, 48.70453 . This would indicate that NO-039 does not qualify.

NO-033 and NO-034

For the pair NO-033 381m, NO-034 377m we need to see a low point of 227m (377-150) between the two for NO-034 to qualify yet taking a straight line between two summits the lowest point at 5.70015, 48.88420 does not drop below the 245m contour. Strangely the location given for NO-034 is well to the west of the actual location of the summit on the 285m contour.

NO-026 and NO-027

For the pair NO-026 210m and NO-027 208m, if we simply draw a straight line between them then we know that we have to find a height somewhere along it of just 58m (208-150) for NO-027 to qualify as P150 and we can't find that. The lowest point we can find was about 67.5m at and certainly no point is below the 65m contour, which indicates that NO-027 does not qualify.

NO-030, NO-044 and NO-045

When we look at NO-044 217m and NO-045 203m we can see that the lowest point between the two is about 95metres in the river valley and we can see a spot height of 97 metres close to the side of the river yet we need to see a height of 53 metres between the two for NO-045 to qualify relative to NO-044. If we go a bit further and examine the terrain between NO-044 and NO-030 417m. For NO-044 to qualify we would expect the surrounding terrain to drop at least to 67 metres (217-150). Along the line from NO-044 to NO-030 we can see the terrain dropping to lowest points of about 100 metres or just a little below but certainly not a low as 90 metres on the banks of the river Sarthe. Similarly checking the line between NO-045 and NO-030 we draw the same conclusion that the lowest point is about 100 metres. As a consequence neither NO-044 nor NO-045 would qualify.

NO-004

NO-004 424m is somewhat surprising. A short distance to the south west without any real drop in between is a spot height 429, followed by three 426m spot heights, then there is a 432m spot height and finally after 6.6km there is a spot height with a triangle height marker at 451 metres which is surely the proper summit of NO-004. What's more is that the current listed position at 27m below this trig point is outside of the activation zone

NO-036

The location given for NO-036 355m doesn't make sense as it puts it on the 270m contour and there is no name on the map matching. the listed name, La Croix Jean Simon appears as text on the map about 2.5 km West of the location listed and indeed there is a spot height of 355metres just south of that text. However there is a 366m summit with trig point 2.2km south west of the listed co-ordinates with no significant drop in between, which surely must be the summit which owns the prominence.

NO-038

The location listed for NO-038 is puzzling as it is within the Kabylie Quarry as can be seen on the map and in Google Earth. However there is a spot to the South West of the listed summit location at 48°9'16.8"N, 0°16'16.5"W or in decimal terms 48.15466, -0.27126. This has a mapped contour based height of 320 metres but not exceeding 325 metres. The point would qualify as P150 and the coordinates for NO-038 should be revised to this location.

The conclusion of this analysis is that NO-002, NO-005, NO-007, NO-010, NO-011, NO-012, NO-013, NO-014, NO-015, NO-019, NO-020, NO-027, NO-029, NO-034, NO-039, NO-044, and NO-045 do not qualify as SOTA summits The summits NO-004, NO-036 and NO-038 do not qualify in their current locations but will qualify if the locations are revised. This would leave NO-001, NO-003, NO-006, NO-008, NO-009, NO-016, NO-017, NO-018, NO-021 NO-022, NO-023, NO-024, NO-025, NO-026, NO-028, NO-030, NO-031, NO-032, NO-033, NO-035, NO-037, NO-040, NO-041, NO-042 and NO-043.

We do not understand how this situation came about but it needs to be corrected to preserve the integrity of SOTA. We will shortly schedule the de-activation of the summits that do not qualify and reposition those for which the co-ordinates are wrongly listed. The date will be advised on the reflector.
Jim g0cqk
SOTA Summits Manager