It's official: Mt. Rainier is still as tall as we thought

The results are in from the most high-tech measurement of Mount Rainier ever undertaken, and — drumroll, please — they're not very different from earlier figures.

A team of volunteers from the Land Surveyors Association of Washington pinned the mountain's height at 3.6 inches taller than the commonly accepted value of 14,411 feet.

But the team is not calling for a rewrite of the maps.

The elevation change was due mainly to the fact that the U.S. Geological Survey marker used as the reference point had been partly pulled out of the ground by vandals, said project coordinator Gavin Schrock.

The two other markers installed in 1956 were missing, apparently stolen.

"The final one left had been pulled up so far, they figure that's the whole 4 inches right there," Schrock said.

The project was the third time in three decades that the surveyors have remeasured Rainier with GPS instruments. The first time, in 1988, the instruments weighed 80 pounds and the effort required a support team of 150 people.

This time, it took only nine people, carrying GPS units that weigh 2 pounds.

The 1988 result was 14,411.1 feet. Rounded off to 14,411, that's the elevation that appears on some official maps. Others stick with the 14,410 figure from the 1956 USGS survey, conducted with traditional triangulation.

The surveyors didn't really expect their new measurement to be dramatically different, Schrock said. A goal was to draw attention to advances in GPS technology and the Washington State Reference Network. The 100 ground-based GPS stations provide fixed reference points that improve survey accuracy.

Sandi Doughton: 206-464-2491 or sdoughton@seattletimes.com