Eventually.

When I was a kid I remember when the USA was going to convert from the Imperial system of measurements to the saner, logical decimal system of Metric. Sometimes it seemed as if it was going to happen any time. Alas, the USA was as loony then as it is now and it never has happened.

Maybe it will happen someday. I don't know. But, it's possible.

One thing that would change is the obsession some hikers have for bagging certain summits all because they are over a certain elevation. In Colorado it's mountains that are over 14,000 feet in elevation. Here in the eastern USA there are groups that concern themselves with hiking to the tops of every mountain over 4,000 feet in some areas (such as the Adirondacks in New York), or all of the 6,000-foot summits in the south.

One such group is South Beyond 6000. These guys (including me, at one time) set out to hike to the summits of every single mountain in the southerns USA that is over 6,000 feet above sea level. All of these peaks are located in either Tennessee or North Carolina. If we convert to the metric system, we will no longer use "feet" and will instead use "meter". So all sixers (the term for such peaks in these clubs) will vanish. Instead we will be looking at summits that will be measured in metrics, likely using kilometers to list them. Thus, the current listing of 39 southern mountains that are over 6,000 feat above sea level will become...well...something else.

Thus, such groups will have to do one of two things. They will have to continue to utilize the archaic and silly Imperial system of measurements, or they will have to adapt. Logically, the first choice would be to climb summits that are over 2,000 meters in elevation. This will reduce the 39 summits to merely seven--four in the Black Mountains, and three in the Great Smoky Mountains.

Or perhaps they'll move to climbing a set number of highest peaks. The 40 highest summits. Or the 50 highest. Etc.

Sillier would be to do all peaks over 1800 meters. Or 1700 meters. And so on.

This is one reason I never finished bagging all of the summits on the original list of mountains in the South Beyond 6000 list. Instead of doing this kind of thing I just switched to hiking and backpacking in areas where there are views or forests or ecological niches I wished to witness before they are plowed under or destroyed due to environmental changes and degradation.

At any rate, going metric will certainly change the way things are done in these little cliques among these tiny clubs of hikers and backpackers.

As for those Colorado 14ers...they all become summits that are over 4,267.2 meters above sea level. Eh.

Cattail Peak, which will go from being 6,600 feet above sea level to being 2,011 meters above sea level. It'll still be tied for being the fifth highest summit (with Balsam Cone) in the east, though.