GPS helped establish the modern height of Canada's highest mountain.

Mount Logan in the Yukon is Canada's highest peak, at 5,959 m. Its modern reference height dates from 1992, when a Geological Survey of Canada expedition carried satellite-positioning equipment to the top — at a time when GPS itself was still new.

Satellite-based surveying changed how very large, remote mountains could be measured.

That doesn't mean GPS fixes a mountain's "true" height forever. Any published elevation still depends on the reference surface used, the survey method and later refinements. Like Denali, Mount Logan's summit is covered in snow and ice.

Official Canadian reference · modern GPS survey. 5,959 m is the height given by Library and Archives Canada; the 1992 expedition's geodetic observations were published by the Geological Survey of Canada.

Early GPS surveying depended on limited daily satellite windows.

• Natural Resources Canada

  Mount Logan geodetic survey history(opens external site)

• Library and Archives Canada

  Mount Logan: Moments in time(opens external site)

  Canada's highest peak, the 5,959-metre Mount Logan

• Geological Survey of Canada (NRCan Open Science Repository)

  Geodetic and Geological Observations From the 1992 Mount Logan Expedition, Yukon Territory(opens external site)

  1992 Mount Logan expedition geodetic observations

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