Nature · Sierra Nevada · summit section · bounded southern view
Mount Whitney: terrain elevation and local relief
Mount Whitney uses an approximately 4,411-meter surface estimate in EGM2008 from Copernicus GLO-30. The bounded terrain section has about 1,982 meters of local relief above its lowest sampled point. Published summit surveys are separate references.
≈ 4,411 m
Data-derived estimate- Measurement
- Highest sampled surface in the documented Copernicus terrain section · EGM2008
- Subject or version
- Sierra Nevada · summit section · bounded southern view
- In feet, rounded
- 14,471.1 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
- 4410.8 m at 36.578611°, -118.292778°.
- Local base
- 2428.7 m at 36.588333°, -118.230833°. Lowest sampled point within this bounded terrain section.
- Section bounds in WGS84-G1150
- West -118.353472°, east -118.230694°; south 36.547083°, north 36.610139°.
- View and scale
- Orthographic map section facing north. Equal horizontal and vertical map scales. Approximate grid spacing: 24.9 m east-west and 30.8 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 Inyo National Forest’s Mount Whitney Trail sheet lists 14,505 feet at the summit, approximately 4,421.1 meters using the exact foot conversion. This terrain section’s highest sample is about 4,411 meters in EGM2008. The rounded trail-sheet elevation stays separate from the global surface model; the southern view includes neighboring ridges rather than isolating a thin triangular mountain icon.
The local-relief view subtracts the lowest sampled point in this section: 2428.7 meters at 36.588333° latitude, -118.230833° longitude. This produces about 1,982 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 Whitney uses an approximately 4,411-meter surface estimate in EGM2008 from Copernicus GLO-30. The bounded terrain section has about 1,982 meters of local relief above its lowest sampled point. Published summit surveys are separate references.
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Sources and measurement notes
- Inyo National Forest: Mount Whitney Trail distances and elevations
- 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)
The source’s 14,505-foot endpoint is a summit elevation, not the ascent from Whitney Portal. The local-relief control uses this section’s own explicitly recorded lowest sample.
Source review recorded . Maintained by Ishan Karunaratne. Suggest a correction with a source and the exact measurement being compared.