science

Thirteener

Thirteener is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Thirteener rather than just read about it. In short: In mountaineering in the United States, a thirteener (abbreviated 13er) is a mountain that exceeds 13,000 feet (3,962.4 m) above mean sea level, similar to the more familiar "fourteeners," which exceed 14,000 feet (4,267.2 m). In most instances, "thirteeners" refers only to those peaks between 13,000 and 13,999 feet in elevation.

Key takeaways

Thirteener belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Thirteener to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Thirteener from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

In mountaineering in the United States, a thirteener (abbreviated 13er) is a mountain that exceeds 13,000 feet (3,962.4 m) above mean sea level, similar to the more familiar "fourteeners," which exceed 14,000 feet (4,267.2 m). In most instances, "thirteeners" refers only to those peaks between 13,000 and 13,999 feet in elevation. The importance of thirteeners is greatest in Colorado, which has the majority of such peaks in North America with over 600 of them. Despite the large number of peaks, over 20 peak baggers have reported climbing all of Colorado's thirteeners. Thirteeners are also significant in states whose highpoints fall between 13,000 and 13,999 feet. For example, the Wyoming thirteeners are the highest peaks within the state, and only 5 individuals have reported climbing all 35 peaks, likely due to a combination of technical difficulty and remoteness. In 2019, Teresa Gergen became the first person to summit all 846 thirteeners outside of Alaska, an accomplishment that took her nearly two decades to complete. Not all summits over 13,000 feet qualify as thirteeners, but only those summits that mountaineers consider to be independent. Objective standards for independence include topographic prominence and isolation (distance from a higher summit), or a combination. However thirteener lists do not always consistently use such objective rules. A rule commonly used by mountaineers in the contiguous United States is that a peak must have at least 300 feet (91 m) of prominence to qualify. According to the Mountaineering Club of Alaska, it is standard in Alaska to use a 500 ft (152 m) prominence rule rather than a 300-foot rule. These are the standards applied for the lists below. Regarding whether or not peaks in excess of 13,999 feet should be considered as "thirteeners", this article will count them as such for statistical purposes, but concentrate its focus on those peaks less than 14,000 feet since the higher peaks are already covered in the fourteeners list.

List of United States thirteeners by state Thirteeners are found in nine U.S. states. This table summarizes their numbers based on each state's prominence criteria:

Colorado

By the most detailed count, Colorado has 637 peaks that exceed 13,000 feet (4,000 m) and meet the prominence criteria, of which 53 are fourteeners. The highest of them less than 14,000 feet are as follows (the rank includes higher peaks):

Grizzly Peak is not only the name of Colorado's highest thirteener, but the state has four other Grizzly Peaks plus one Grizzly Mountain on the list:

Other notable Colorado thirteeners include:

California California has the second greatest number of thirteeners with 149 of them, of which 12 are fourteeners. The highest under 14,000 feet are as follows (the rank includes higher peaks):

Other notable California thirteeners include:

Alaska Alaska has at least 41 thirteeners that meet its more stringent prominence criteria of 500 ft, of which 20 are also fourteeners. Different sources list varying numbers of 13,000+ ft peaks in the state, mainly because many of the peaks (especially those that are sub-peaks of a higher mountain) are unnamed and have no spot elevations given on the USGS topographical maps. Using a 300' interpolated prominence criterion, there are 61 13,000+ ft peaks in Alaska. The following list may miss a few peaks that should be included:

Wyoming Wyoming has 35 thirteeners with at least 300 ft of interpolated prominence, but no fourteeners. 31 of the 35 are located in the rugged and remote Wind River Range. Several of the Wyoming thirteeners require glacier travel and/or rock climbing up to the 5.4 YDS difficulty level to reach the summit, and most climbers spend multiple days backpacking to reach most of these peaks. The highest of them are:

Other notable Wyoming thirteeners include:

Utah Utah has 17 thirteeners with at least 300 ft of prominence, but no fourteeners. All of them are located in the remote Uinta Mountains near the Wyoming border. The highest of the thirteeners are:

New Mexico New Mexico has 3 thirteeners, all located within about 40 miles (64 km) of each other in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

Hawaii Hawaii has two thirteeners, the great shield volcanoes which comprise the bulk of the Big Island of Hawaii.

Nevada Nevada has only a single thirteener that meets the threshold for inclusion, Wheeler Peak in Great Basin National Park with an impressive 7,568 feet (2,307 m) of prominence. However, the highest point in the state is Boundary Peak, which is a sub-peak of California's Montgomery Peak with only 240 feet (73 m) of prominence.

Washington Mount Rainier is the only mountain in Washington state that exceeds 13,000 feet (4,000 m), and it has two summits that meet the prominence criteria, both of which are included on the list of fourteeners.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Thirteener

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Thirteener claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Thirteener before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Thirteener ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Thirteener

In research: Thirteener appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Thirteener in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Thirteener is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Lists of mountains, Mountains, Peak bagging in the United States, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Thirteener outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Thirteener in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Thirteener means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Thirteener out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Thirteener in simple terms?

Why does Thirteener matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Thirteener?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Thirteener.