The Peak Quest
Below is the elevation map of a mountain, where the outer edge of the 5 x 5 grid is ground level and the number in each cell represents the height of the cell.
An adventurous hiker wants to conquer the highest peak. However, he is not familiar with the area, so he will always go to the highest peak (north, south, east, or west) adjacent to him.
Now, he starts from a random point on the outer edge and hikes up that peak first. Following the rule stated above, will he eventually reach the highest peak?
This section requires Javascript.
You are seeing this because something didn't load right. We suggest you, (a) try
refreshing the page, (b) enabling javascript if it is disabled on your browser and,
finally, (c)
loading the
non-javascript version of this page
. We're sorry about the hassle.
1 solution
Say he starts from just above the 13, he will immediately travel to the 13. Being at the highest point adjacent, he will have to decrease to the 11, but will then simply return to the 13, caught in an endless loop.
Say he starts from just above the 7 on the top row, he will immediately travel from this 7 to the 14, reaching the high point.
Therefore the answer is N o as for some examples he can, and some he can't.