Naming "Mount Thoreau"
Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2014 12:53 pm
A group of us ascended peak 12,691 from the Wonder Lakes on September 26, 2014, and named it "Mount Thoreau." We hope the informal name will be taken up in the same way as "Mount Randy Morgenson" and "Mount Stephen Jay Gould." The peak stands across Piute Canyon from Mount Emerson, so it will make a very nice pair if the Thoreau name sticks, similar to Mounts Scylla and Charybdis when leaving the Ionian Basin.
We're aware that the peak has sometimes been called "Wonder Peak," and once "Mount George Davis," but suggest that "Mount Thoreau" is better. Up until now there has been no feature in the Sierra Nevada named for Thoreau, and as he was a great inspiration to John Muir, and to the entire American wilderness and conservation movement, we think this name is very fitting and appropriate.
We camped at the middle Wonder Lakes on the night of September 25, a very windy night—weather stations reported gusts of 60 mph in the area. We were in a well-protected campsite and Friday morning it was just a bit windy. The ascent from Wonder Lakes is almost entirely class 1, with a little bit of class 2 near the top. Basically a walk-up. Looks like class 1 and 2 from Lake Emerson, and the north face overlooking Piute Pass trail, is a banded wall. We've found no reports of anyone going up that north face, and now that it's the north face of "Mount Thoreau," maybe someone will do it. We hope so.
We had a party afterward to celebrate the ascent, with Gary Snyder in attendance as our presiding luminary. Also there were Michael Blumlein, Dick Bryan, Darryl DeVinney, Laurie Glover, Hilary Gordon, Tom Killion, Paul Park, Stan Robinson, Charlie Schneider, Carter Scholz, and Chris Woodcock (summit group); also Bridget Breen, Armando Quintero, Isabella Breen, David Robertson, Jeanette Robertson, John Markoff, Leslie Terzian, and Tom Buoye (naming party). John wrote up the event for the New York Times, and it can be found at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/07/scien ... ience&_r=2" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
We hope people like this idea, and that the new name is informally taken up by all Sierra lovers!
Thanks--- Stan Robinson-- for the group.
We're aware that the peak has sometimes been called "Wonder Peak," and once "Mount George Davis," but suggest that "Mount Thoreau" is better. Up until now there has been no feature in the Sierra Nevada named for Thoreau, and as he was a great inspiration to John Muir, and to the entire American wilderness and conservation movement, we think this name is very fitting and appropriate.
We camped at the middle Wonder Lakes on the night of September 25, a very windy night—weather stations reported gusts of 60 mph in the area. We were in a well-protected campsite and Friday morning it was just a bit windy. The ascent from Wonder Lakes is almost entirely class 1, with a little bit of class 2 near the top. Basically a walk-up. Looks like class 1 and 2 from Lake Emerson, and the north face overlooking Piute Pass trail, is a banded wall. We've found no reports of anyone going up that north face, and now that it's the north face of "Mount Thoreau," maybe someone will do it. We hope so.
We had a party afterward to celebrate the ascent, with Gary Snyder in attendance as our presiding luminary. Also there were Michael Blumlein, Dick Bryan, Darryl DeVinney, Laurie Glover, Hilary Gordon, Tom Killion, Paul Park, Stan Robinson, Charlie Schneider, Carter Scholz, and Chris Woodcock (summit group); also Bridget Breen, Armando Quintero, Isabella Breen, David Robertson, Jeanette Robertson, John Markoff, Leslie Terzian, and Tom Buoye (naming party). John wrote up the event for the New York Times, and it can be found at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/07/scien ... ience&_r=2" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
We hope people like this idea, and that the new name is informally taken up by all Sierra lovers!
Thanks--- Stan Robinson-- for the group.
