What’s a Thirteener?

The California Thirteeners (aka 13’ers, 13ers, 13Kers, etc.) are the tallest mountains in the state, automatically incorporating the Fourteeners and Hundred Highest. Although most California Thirteeners present worthy alpine objectives for the mountaineer, I would be the first to admit that a complete list of a state’s Thirteeners is primarily of interest to the peakbagger.

Most of the peaks had as their first ascenders those who in a former day would have been called explorers but now could only be thought of as peakbaggers, interested primarily in trudging endlessly over heaps of stones, building cairns, and inserting their business cards into specifically designed cannisters especially carried for this purpose. But perhaps I am being too harsh. They’re having their fun.

Steve Roper, The Climber’s Guide to the High Sierra
Copyright ©1976 by Sierra Club Books

Compiling a list of the 13,000-foot peaks is a bit more complicated than simply including all summits rising above 13,000 feet, for not all of those peaks could seriously be considered separate mountains. To illustrate this point, suppose that you’re walking up a ridge toward the summit of some 14,000-foot peak. Once you pass the 13,000-foot level, every rock or boulder on the ridge crest rises above everything in its immediate vicinity, but would you call it a mountain? Climbers need additional, preferably objective criteria for deciding which are the mountains, and which are just bumps on the ridge, sub-summits, etc.

Some of the other list compilers have required that the summit have an official (or unofficial) name, but in my view this unduly favors the more well-known and easily accessible mountains over their distant, more exotic cousins. The convention used for the compilation of the Colorado Fourteeners, Hundred Highest, etc. is that the summit must stand 300 feet above all saddles connecting it to higher peaks. Like the summit height criterion, I admit that the 300-foot “prominence” (aka “saddle depth”) criterion is fairly arbitrary. However, I think it comes closest to representing what it means to be a mountain. I’ve therefore decided to adopt it for the Official VRMC California Thirteeners List.

What Happened to Mt. Muir?

Unfortunately, the saddle criterion eliminates four peaks appearing in Stephen F. Porcella and Cameron M. Burns’s Climbing California’s Fourteeners: The Route Guide to the Fifteen Highest Peaks (Mt. Muir, Thunderbolt, Starlight, and Polemonium Peaks). I certainly don’t limit my mountaineering to official Thirteeners; I’ve done Muir, Thunderbolt and Polemonium and highly recommend these climbs. Some day I plan to wrestle my way up the “milk bottle” atop Starlight as well (we turned back from the West Face route in 1993.) I also recommend Burns & Porcella’s guidebook, which includes excellent route descriptions. That said, what right does “Starlight Peak” (14,219' high with a 79' saddle) have to claim Fourteener status over Keeler Needle (14,288' with a 210' saddle)? Rather than make subjective decisions for the entire climbing community, I favor consistent, objective criteria, and the four peaks mentioned above from Porcella & Burns’ list simply don’t cut it.

The closest of the four is Mt. Muir. On 22 July 2000, over a very short period of time and in clear, stable weather, a VRMC climbing party measured its saddle depth with several altimeters, and it came in at 276(+/-20) feet. I hope this encourages somebody out there to lug a transit up the Mt. Whitney trail so we can answer this question once and for all. I really do wish it had 300 feet of saddle depth - I love climbing this mountain (four times and counting).

If you don’t see a peak in the list above, you’ll probably find it (along with Mt. Muir) on the Official VRMC non-Thirteeners list.

Are You a Peakbagger Too?

Here are the registered climbers closest to finishing the list:

Keep track of your own climbs - become a registered climber!

Methodology and other Supplemental Pages

The following pages include various other peak lists, details on the VRMC methodology, etc:

• California Fourteeners
• California 50 Highest
• California 100 Highest
• California 4000-Meter Peaks
• California 150 Highest
• California non-Thirteeners
• Methodology Details
• Coming Soon?
• Revision History
• Acknowledgements
• Other Sierra Peak Lists

Data Submissions Welcome

I welcome information about summit and/or saddle elevations, but please study the Methodology page first so you know where my data come from. If you notice a mistake I’ve made (such as an incorrectly listed map elevation) or have accurate survey data for a summit or saddle, please send an email to me at: schmed@transpac.com.