Mount Sunflower
Kansas
March 2013
Climbing to the high point of Kansas is about as challenging as climbing up into your dentist’s chair, only not as traumatic.
Yes, the highest point in Kansas is at an altitude of 4039 feet, higher than the high points of 22 other states. Yet Mount Sunflower is utterly unspectacular, basically because most of the rest of the state is at roughly 4038 feet.
Actually, that’s not true at all. While Kansas is undeniably flat — it’s been said that Kansas is flatter than a pancake — it has a slope.
Kansas is known for several distinctions other than how flat it is. For example, at one time, the largest hailstone of all recorded time fell in Kansas. This heroic chunk of ice measured a full 17.5 inches around, or about the size of a 7-month old baby’s head, or somewhat smaller than a bowling ball. This ice slab was found in Coffeyville in 1970.
Coffeyville is a city in eastern Kansas, some of its border defined by the Verdigris River, which, at 679 feet, is the lowest point in Kansas. It’s almost as if this sloping state is anchored at Coffeyville and the surrounding area in the east, and rises gradually as you go west, eventually crossing the state border and soaring up dramatically when you get about two-fifths of the way through Colorado. Along the way west on this upward slope, before you cross the state line, is Mount Sunflower at 4039 feet. The state is flat, but it is not level. It gradually rises, like a drafting table with two short legs in the east and two long legs in the west.
It is kind of a requirement written into the United States Constitution (Article IX, paragraph 2a) that at least once a day, somebody driving across Kansas, west to east or east to west, it doesn’t matter, must exclaim, “Wow, what a flat state! I’ll bet it’s flatter than a pancake!”
Even though it is Constitutionally mandated, one gets to wondering. Is this true? Is Kansas really flatter than a pancake?
Behold Kansas, contrary to opinion and belief, is not the flattest state in these United. That distinction belongs to Florida with its ultimate land point at 345 feet, and the least altitude change from low point to high point (345 feet.)
Here in Kansas, Mount Sunflower’s prominence is almost embarrassing as a high point, as the hump rises less than twenty feet from the surrounding area. If you didn’t know where you were, you wouldn’t know where you were.
But still, is Kansas flatter than a pancake?
In 2003, Mark Fonstad and William Pugatch of the Department of Geography, Texas State University, and Brandon Vogt of the Department of Geography, Arizona State University in Tempe, did this most essential research. Here’s what they found.
First they note that “mathematical techniques are needed to do a proper comparison” as it would be impossible, or at least improbable, to work with a Kansas-sized pancake or a pancake-sized Kansas.
Next in their report is an exegesis using some simple formulae and phrases like “semi-major axis,” “local ellipsoid with a second-order polynomial line” and “global f of 0.00335.”
Full disclosure on the part of the researchers…
1
The comparison was performed with the real state of Kansas and a real pancake purchased from a local International House of Pancakes.
2
The three scientists ignored the…
NO FOOD OR DRINK
…sign posted in the microscopy room.
The research commenced. We are again presented with scientific phrases… “macro-pancake topography through digital image processing of a pancake image and ruler for scale calibration” and “confocal laser microscope” and possibly “blah, blah,” but I’m not sure about this last one.
A value of 1.000 would indicate perfect flatness. Results produced by these researchers yielded that the pancake had a flatness of 0.957 whereas Kansas has a flatness of 0.9997. In English, according to the researchers, this translates to “a pancake is ‘pretty flat’ whereas Kansas is ‘damned flat.’”
Conclusion: Yes, Kansas is flatter than a pancake. You are now permitted, scientifically, to make the comment, when driving through Kansas, “Wow! This place really is flatter than a pancake!” And you would be correct. Scientifically, mathematically and constitutionally correct.
Now that we know that Kansas is flat, how flat is it?
. If your dog runs away, you can still see him three days later.
. If you stare long enough at the horizon, you’ll eventually be able to see the back of your own head.
How flat is it? That flat.