Nature · Washington · Columbia Crest section · historical surface
Mount Rainier: terrain elevation and local relief
Mount Rainier uses an approximately 4,415-meter surface estimate in EGM2008 from Copernicus GLO-30. The bounded terrain section has about 2,765 meters of local relief above its lowest sampled point. Published summit surveys are separate references.
≈ 4,415 m
Data-derived estimate- Measurement
- Highest sampled surface in the documented Copernicus terrain section · EGM2008
- Subject or version
- Washington · Columbia Crest section · historical surface
- In feet, rounded
- 14,483.6 ft (1 ft = 0.3048 m)
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Terrain boundary, base and datum
- Vertical reference
- EGM2008. Published surveys are separate; no datum conversion is applied.
- Highest sampled surface
- 4414.6 m at 46.853056°, -121.760556°.
- Local base
- 1649.4 m at 46.820278°, -121.832222°. Lowest sampled point within this bounded terrain section.
- Section bounds in WGS84-G1150
- West -121.832639°, east -121.688472°; south 46.820139°, north 46.883194°.
- View and scale
- Orthographic map section facing north. Equal horizontal and vertical map scales. Approximate grid spacing: 21.2 m east-west and 30.9 m north-south. Lower and surrounding terrain omitted.
produced using Copernicus WorldDEM-30 © DLR e.V. 2010-2014 and © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH 2014-2018 provided under COPERNICUS by the European Union and ESA; all rights reserved
A little more perspective
The National Park Service’s familiar 14,410-foot reference describes Mount Rainier’s traditional summit elevation. A 2025 survey by Gilbertson and colleagues instead reports the southwest rim as the highest point, at 4,391.04 meters in NAVD88, following ice loss at Columbia Crest. This older Copernicus section reaches about 4,415 meters in EGM2008. Different dates, datums and surface sampling prevent those numbers from being treated as interchangeable.
The local-relief view subtracts the lowest sampled point in this section: 1649.4 meters at 46.820278° latitude, -121.832222° longitude. This produces about 2,765 meters of relief within the stated boundary. It is not a universal mountain base, a route’s total ascent, or topographic prominence.
The rendered surface uses the public 2021 Copernicus release, primarily based on TanDEM-X observations from 2011–2015 with infill from other sources. It is a surface model rather than a current bare-earth survey. Neutral shading explains the geometry without claiming a snow season or photographic ground texture. No datum conversion or summit correction is applied.
Quick facts
Mount Rainier uses an approximately 4,415-meter surface estimate in EGM2008 from Copernicus GLO-30. The bounded terrain section has about 2,765 meters of local relief above its lowest sampled point. Published summit surveys are separate references.
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Sources and measurement notes
- Gilbertson and colleagues: Mount Rainier and Liberty Cap Elevation Survey 2025 (preprint)
- National Park Service: Mount Rainier frequently asked questions
- Copernicus DEM: dataset definition, datums and attribution
- Public Copernicus GLO-30 release documentation
- Wikidata: summit-area identity and initial coordinate
- Copernicus source terrain tile 1 (GeoTIFF)
This is an older modeled Columbia Crest section, not a reconstruction of the 2025 southwest-rim survey. Its approximate 4,415-meter surface value must not be presented as a current surveyed summit.
Source review recorded . Maintained by Ishan Karunaratne. Suggest a correction with a source and the exact measurement being compared.