Check the Heights
Measured From the Mountain
We read the summit from the ground itself and print the published height beside it, so you can hold our number against the one you know.
Last updated
Where the mountain comes from
Each mountain is drawn from OpenStreetMap, the map its volunteers survey: the summit node with its name, the climbing routes mapped as routes, the paths with their difficulty on the SAC scale, the camps and huts, and the glaciers, rock, scree, water and woods round them. The ground under it all is the AWS Terrain Tiles, the open elevation model that carries SRTM, 3DEP, EU-DEM and the national surveys its attribution names.
How the summit is measured
The summit is the highest ground within 300 metres of the mapped summit node, read every 3 metres across the zoom 14 tiles, about 10 metres to a pixel at the equator. That's our height. Beside it the sheet prints the survey's published height, in the unit the survey uses, with the authority and the day we read it.
How a route is measured
A route's length is measured along its line on the WGS84 ellipsoid, the surface a GPS uses, by Vincenty's method. Its climb is read from the ground under it every 10 metres, counting only rises of 2 metres or more, so the noise of the terrain doesn't add height you never gained. Each camp within 250 metres of the line is set at the height of the ground it stands on; we never type a camp's height in.
Your own track
A GPX or TCX file is read in your browser and never uploaded. The studio keeps the line it draws, simplified to at most 5,000 points, and the times where the file had them. A track whose highest point lies more than 500 metres from the summit you chose is refused, with the distance.
Both Heights, Always
We check our summit against every peak whose survey height we've read, within the larger of 2% and 60 metres, a tolerance fixed before the first comparison and never loosened. A peak outside it stays in the table with the reason, and its print says so under our figure.
| Mountain | Published | We measure | Difference | Tolerance | Within it? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mount Everest | 8,848.86 m Nepal and China survey, 2020 | 8,749.1 m | −99.8 m | 177 m | Within |
| K2 | 8,611 m | 8,574.1 m | −36.9 m | 172 m | Within |
| Aconcagua | 6,967.15 m | 6,945.2 m | −21.9 m | 139 m | Within |
| Ama Dablam | 6,812 m Nepa Maps, 2013 | 6,669.7 m | −142.3 m | 136 m | Outside: a steep, narrow summit the terrain grid averages into its faces: 142.3 m low, 6 m past the 136 m tolerance, on the run of 12 October 2026 |
| Mera Peak | 6,476 m | 6,428.7 m | −47.3 m | 130 m | Within |
| Chimborazo | 6,263.47 m | 6,262.2 m | −1.3 m | 125 m | Within |
| Denali | 20,310 ft USGS, 2015 | 6,167.4 m | −23.1 m | 124 m | Within |
| Island Peak | 6,165 m Nepal Mountaineering Association | 6,142.3 m | −22.7 m | 123 m | Within |
| Cotopaxi | 5,897 m | 5,881.4 m | −15.6 m | 118 m | Within |
| Kilimanjaro | 5,895 m British survey, 1952 | 5,886.9 m | −8.1 m | 118 m | Within |
| Mount Elbrus | 5,642 m | 5,631.6 m | −10.4 m | 113 m | Within |
| Pico de Orizaba | 5,636 m | 5,595.4 m | −40.6 m | 113 m | Within |
| Mount Vinson | 4,892 m Omega Foundation GPS survey, 2004 | 2,824.4 m | −2067.6 m | 98 m | Outside: Antarctica lies south of SRTM, whose survey stops at 60 degrees south, and the coarse global model in its place reads the summit 2,067.6 m low (12 October 2026). My Summits prints the published height for it, marked as published |
| Puncak Jaya | 4,884 m Australian Universities' Expedition, 1971–73 | 4,819.5 m | −64.5 m | 98 m | Within |
| Mont Blanc | 4,805.59 m Haute-Savoie surveyors, 2023 | 4,789.6 m | −16.0 m | 96 m | Within |
| Monte Rosa | 4,634 m | 4,521.7 m | −112.3 m | 93 m | Outside: the Dufourspitze is a narrow rock crest the terrain grid averages into its flanks: 112.3 m low on the run of 12 October 2026 |
| Matterhorn | 4,478 m swisstopo | 4,354.4 m | −123.6 m | 90 m | Outside: a needle summit narrower than the terrain grid, which averages it into the faces below: 123.6 m low on the run of 12 October 2026 |
| Mount Whitney | 14,505 ft NGS benchmark | 4,414.1 m | −7.0 m | 88 m | Within |
| Mount Elbert | 14,440 ft NAVD 88 | 4,397.0 m | −4.3 m | 88 m | Within |
| Mount Rainier | 14,406 ft Gilbertson survey, 2025 | 4,392.6 m | +1.7 m | 88 m | Within |
| Longs Peak | 14,259.9 ft NAPGD2022 | 4,347.2 m | +0.8 m | 87 m | Within |
| Mount Shasta | 14,179 ft NGS, NAVD 88 | 4,315.4 m | −6.4 m | 86 m | Within |
| Toubkal | 4,167 m | 4,158.4 m | −8.6 m | 83 m | Within |
| Mount Kinabalu | 4,095 m | 4,056.7 m | −38.3 m | 82 m | Within |
| Gran Paradiso | 4,061 m IGM | 3,982.6 m | −78.4 m | 81 m | Within |
| Eiger | 3,967 m | 3,916.1 m | −50.9 m | 79 m | Within |
| Grossglockner | 3,798 m | 3,792.8 m | −5.2 m | 76 m | Within |
| Mount Fuji | 3,776.24 m | 3,760.0 m | −16.2 m | 76 m | Within |
| Teide | 3,715 m Instituto Geográfico Nacional | 3,680.8 m | −34.2 m | 74 m | Within |
| Mount Hood | 11,249 ft NGS, 1986 | 3,427.1 m | −1.6 m | 69 m | Within |
| Zugspitze | 2,962 m | 2,956.3 m | −5.7 m | 60 m | Within |
| Mount Olympus | 2,917.73 m Ampatzidis and others, 2023 | 2,838.3 m | −79.4 m | 60 m | Outside: Mytikas is a bare rock pinnacle a few metres across, which the terrain grid averages into the cliffs around it: 79.4 m low against a 60 m tolerance on the run of 12 October 2026 |
| Mount Kosciuszko | 2,228 m | 2,225.3 m | −2.7 m | 60 m | Within |
| Ben Nevis | 1,345 m Ordnance Survey, 2016 | 1,332.4 m | −12.6 m | 60 m | Within |
| Yr Wyddfa | 1,085 m | 1,045.4 m | −39.6 m | 60 m | Within |
Why our height can read low
The open elevation data under the highest peaks is coarse. The radar that made much of it saw nothing on the steepest faces, so the gaps were filled, and a summit narrower than a pixel is averaged into the slopes below it. Antarctica lies south of where that radar flew, so Vinson's ground comes from a coarser global model. Where ours reads low, the survey's number is on the sheet beside it.
Where a summit is a needle or a narrow crest, the Matterhorn, Monte Rosa, Ama Dablam or Olympus, the table keeps the miss with its reason. We never nudge our number toward the survey's to close the gap.
How each style is drawn
Every style is drawn from the same ground and the same map; what changes is what the drawing keeps.
- Relief
- Shadows cast by a low sun from the north-west, the light a cartographer draws by.
- Oblique
- The mountain seen from the side of the approach, 60 degrees down, its heights drawn at twice their scale.
- Route
- A pale relief, glaciers in blue, rock hatched, and every mapped path dashed by its SAC grade.
- Contour
- Contour lines from the ground's measured heights, every fifth heavier, glaciers in a pale wash.
- Survey
- Contours, cliffs and ridges in ink, the glaciers and rock outlined and nothing filled.
- Linocut
- The shadowed faces cut as one solid block of ink, and the route printed in its tone.
- Gilt
- The mountain in gold on black or navy, with a gold keyline round the sheet.
- Watercolour
- Layered washes, and a cool shadow on every north face, read from the ground's aspect.
How a tone is offered
A route tone is offered on a ground only where its line holds 3:1 contrast against it, the floor for a line you need to follow, and a camp name set in the tone only where it holds 4.5:1; otherwise the name is set in the sheet's ink. On the darkest grounds that leaves fewer than eight tones, and the styles page shows which.
What we refuse
- A route the map doesn't hold and you didn't give us. A peak with no mapped route prints its relief, and the route is your own GPX.
- A camp height typed in. Each is measured from the ground.
- A figure the browser sends. The server measures the summit and the route again before it prints.