Can someone explain to me, who is nytimes writing this article for, exactly? Only Brits mix units like this, but this is an American publication - so what gives? Why not just stick to meters or feet throughout and be consistent?
60m is a standard category of rope, so it would be confusing (for climbers at least) to call it 196ft or 200ft rope.
It's also common to talk about 4000-footers in New Hampshire and 13ers in Colorado, so I guess that's why (some) people stick to feet for mountain heights.
I agree it doesn't make sense because sometimes you have to convert in your head to see if your rope is long enough, but it's just the custom here for whatever reason.
It's generally worth watching since units are an important part of our lives.
I’m probably some sort of challenged but I really can’t internalise if 5000 feet is impressive or not. Like it could be 20 meters or it could be a 1000. Of course it’s fair that an American article uses their various “freedom” scales and I tend to just “give up” and ignore the numbers I don’t understand. The article itself does enough to impress the magnitude of these climbers achievement without the numbers.
Are you proud of being unable to solve this? It would have taken you less keypresses to find out than to write your message.
Hint: if you want a rough estimate just divide the number of feets by 3.
It is what it is.