Mount Elbert in Colorado is the highest peak in the Rocky Mountains. Elbert is the second highest mountain in the continental United States after Mount Whitney in California, and is but 72 feet (22 m) shorter than Whitney's 14,505 feet (4,421 m).
Elbert is a fairly easy climb, and popular with hikers. It is located in the Saguache Range (also spelled Sawatch), west of Leadville, Colorado.
The highest peak in the entire 1800-mile sweep of the majestic Rocky Mountains is not Pikes Peak, nor the Grand Teton, nor any of the awesome summits of the Canadian Rockies. The honor goes to Mt. Elbert, a huge, sprawling, gentle, and uninspiring massif in the Sawatch Range just southwest of Leadville, Colorado. Few non-mountaineers outside of Colorado have heard of Mount Elbert, and even in Colorado the state's high point is sometimes regarded as an embarassing joke.
Leadville, at 10,000 feet, is the highest town of any size in the U.S., so Mount Elbert's base is so high it robs the peak of much of it's apparent elevation. Trails up Mount Elbert begin as high as 10,100', leaving the hike to the summit with less vertical gain than the standrard route up New Hampshire's 5799' Mount Adams (4333' vs. 4492'). The gentleness of the peak is such that people have been known to mountain-bike to the summit, and at one point a road was planned--certainly it's just as feasible as the ones up Pikes Peak or Mount Evans.
README.TXT:
Thank you for purchasing a Maness-Allen Terrain Model. Be sure to read the important notes at the end of this ReadMe.
This highly flexible terrain model includes a variable resolution elevation object, based on 10 Meter Digital Elevation Model data and five very detailed textures.
You can adjust the grid density of the elevation object in 3DS Max to suit your needs. We recommend no denser a grid than 10 meter, as further subdivision won't yield better topographical fidelity. When you load the file initially, the grid is set to 50 meters, to speed loading on slower machines. Select the TerrainModel Object, then the Elevation in the modifier stack and adjust the grid density to suit your needs. The .3DS and .DXF formats do not support the elevation object, and so are saved with a 10 meter grid.
The textures are USGS Topographical, USGS 1 Meter Greyscale, and NASA Landsat 7 Visible.
Be sure to download the textures you need in the attached file section. They are packaged separately to keep the download sizes reasonable.
The complete package includes:
In RELEASE.ZIP:
MountElbert_R5.max (or .3ds, .DXF)
SunsetSky.jpg
BlueSky.jpg
GreySky.jpg
Elbert1MeterGrey_LowRes.jpg
ElbertLandSat7Visible_LowRes.jpg
ElbertUSGSTopo_LowRes.jpg
High Resolution Texture Files:
Elbert1MeterGrey.jpg (Elbert1MeterGrey.zip)
ElbertLandSat7Visible.jpg (ElbertLandsat7Visible.zip)
ElbertUSGSTopo.jpg (ElbertUSGSTopo.zip)
IMPORTANT NOTE:
To use the larger bitmap textures, you MUST activate bitmap paging in MAX. Go to the Customize->Preferences menu, then select the bitmap tab. Check the 'Bitmap Pager' option then close and restart MAX. The larger bitmaps will now load.
UVW Mapping Note:
The textures are orthorectified and adjusted to exactly match the elevation object. If you are translating or importing this file, you should apply a planar UVW mapping to your object with no scaling or other adjustments. The image textures should map correctly, regardless of the rendering application.
