Alameda County Highpoint Commentary

LIDAR data

Date: December 1, 2014
Author: Andrew Kirmse

Uncertainty continues about whether Discovery Peak or Challenger Peak is the true CoHP of Alameda County, CA.
A co-worker of mine took a look at a 2006 USGS LIDAR survey which gives the following results.

Discovery Peak   1172.330 meters (3846.23 feet)         Challenger Peak   1171.824 meters (3844.56 feet)

Metadata indicates that the vertical accuracy is 0.3 meter at the 95% confidence level.

These values are taken from the bare earth sample points. There is some communication equipment at the top of Discovery Peak and some trees on Challenger. If the raw values are considered, the max elevations are significantly higher, which gives at least some confidence that points were correctly classified as ground.