About the List

There's a lot to write about the SPS list. Or, more completely, the Sierra Club, Angeles Chapter, Sierra Peaks Section Peaks List.

We'd love to learn more and share about some SPS legends: Andy Smatko, first finisher (1964); the prolific pair of Barbara Lilley, first woman finisher (1969), and Gordon MacLeod; 7-summitter and 8X(!) list finisher Doug Mantle; or Matthew Holliman, first to dayhike the list and Bob Burd, right behind him.

We'd love to talk about why some peaks are included and why some aren't. Why some peaks have been delisted. What is the deal with Pilot Knob (S) anyway?

Over the course of Travis' and Nathan's effort we'd like to explore some of these topics. Until then, we recommend reading some back issues of The Sierra Echo or the official SPS history.

Note: this website is unaffiliated with the Sierra Club or Sierra Peaks Section.

Verifying the FKT

We understand and encourage robust verification of FKTs. We will do the following:

Record and publish all activities on Strava as they occur.
Provide access to the raw activity files from our watches.
Provide unmodified photos of us on summits.
Provide access to real-time Garmin inReach tracking.
Sign all available/found summit registers.
Provide trip reports on this site.
Given the duration and scope of this attempt, we expect to come across many people who can serve as additional backup verification as needed.

About the Website

We developed this website specifically to track and document Nathan and Travis' effort. We hope the technology provides a glimpse into the depth of their effort. We hope to both improve and write about the website during their effort.

The Stats

We make every effort to post up-to-date and accurate stats for mileage, activity time, and elevation gain. Our methodology is basically to take the Strava activity totals and add them up. There are a few caveats:

It's not shown on the website, but the stats are broken up by peak. We break them at each summit. So the approach is included in the first summit of a link up and the "deproach" is included in the stats of the last. A fresh activity is started after camping.
"Activity time" is the elasped time of the activity including all stops and breaks. It is not moving time.
In the event of bad or missing data (battery issues, GPS issues, user error, etc.) we do our best to estimate.
We'll make it obvious if we decide to recalculate the stats with a different methodology.

Bottom line: we're doing our best but take the numbers with a little grain of salt.

No Ads

Several companies and organizations support Nathan and Travis in their effort and we may directly promote them. Beyond that, this site will never have ads.

No 3rd Party Tracking or Content

We collect a small amount of information about how you use the website (without using cookies) but we don't use any trackers or share any data with third parties.

Data Attribution

The elevation data is from the USGS elevation program. We very much look forward to the completion of the Sierra Nevada LIDAR collection slated for 2022.

The overhead imagery is from the USDA NAIP program.

Non-SPS placenames are from the USGS GNIS.

Contact Us

We'd love to hear from you. Email us at team@sps2022.com or engage with us on social media.

Yes, that's the Mount Whitney Skyline

Website Changelog

2022-03-20 08:00Z
- Added links from peaks to TR posts on peaks page.
2022-03-06 08:00Z
- Mile markers in activity view.
- Altitude display in activity view.
- Hide timeline/HUD when viewing picture in activity view.
2022-02-28 09:00Z
- Speed display in activity view.
- Activity playback accounts for speed.
2022-02-25 07:35Z
- Don't show recent track if it hasn't updated recently.
2022-02-25 07:10Z
- Added "Verifying the FKT" section to this document.
- Added "Latest Stats" section.
- Small UI tweaks to "Latest Location".
2022-02-24 23:30Z
- Sort inReach messages by time (they can come out of order!).
2022-02-24 20:30Z
- Added inReach integration for near real time 3D map tracking to home page.
- Changed mouse wheel zoom speed to be faster for non-touch devices.
2022-02-23 20:40Z
- Worked around desktop (not mobile/tablet) Safari bug that was causing 3D scenes to fail.
- Added this changelog.