Grab your bear can or camp chair, kick your feet up and chew the fat about anything Sierra Nevada related that doesn't quite fit in any of the other forums. Within reason, (and the HST rules and guidelines) this is also an anything goes forum. Tell stories, discuss wilderness issues, music, or whatever else the High Sierra stirs up in your mind.
Wandering Daisy wrote:...
The Wind Rivers have some of the most uncreative, mundane geographical names I have seen. Rather than actually naming features, geographical defaults were used - West Fork, East Fork, New Fork, blah, blah...
There is one spot in Lassen NF you can stand, and by simply twisting your head see three Black Buttes. Two different Blue Lakes only a few miles apart. Same for Clear Creek and Pine Creek, Snow Mountain, Sugarloaf, et al.
OTOH -- Cement Panther Creek has a nice backstory, as does JimJam Ridge.
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Log off and get outdoors!
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bigpiney wrote:I have always wanted to hike Hell For Sure pass just because of the name. So I guess I fall into that category of people who like the cool names.
It's a pretty pass, but not a really high or difficult one. It's hard to find the trail junction on the Goddard Canyon side. From the west it's easier to find the trail but it is a long uphill pull to get there from Post Corral. I'm sure that climb is why the name -- someone who decided to do it in one day without stopping at one of the gorgeous spots along the way probably hated that climb. It's not a cool name, tho.
How many things named after the devil are there? I've lost count. Devil's Bathtub is anything but. Gorgeous lake. None of those things is particularly hellish or devil-like. How peculiar that we'll call it God's Country but then stick hell or devil on features in it.
Accurate names -- that's a different story. The John Manure Trail, reflecting the long pack trains that travel it, and all the piles they leave, for example. Or the John Muir Freeway -- one hiker after the next, hiking day and night. Funnily enough, Theodore Solomons should get the credit for the JMT - instead his route is the lower elevation, less scenic one, wandering along with sections of the trail falling into hideous states of disrepair thanks to absolutely no budget for maintenance and a dearth of volunteers for the hard working trail crews that attempt to hold back the ravages of time.
Agree with your behavior analysis, well described thankyou. Thus your suspicions of refraining from cool naming are probably wise. Same glorying name recognition behavior likely has to do with why so many people climb famous peaks like Half Dome, Mount Ranier, and Everest... Gee if I climb Mount Whitney, everyone will need to wear sunglasses to view my glowing gold badge!
Photographers like this person face a similar kind of dilemma identifying subject locations. I've long since learned to make it difficult for those reading my reports to know where I took more obscure images at. I dread the day that every strong subject in a region is on some GPS list that some !@#$ created then sold for a few bucks on the web. The negative flip side of that is I sometimes choose to not identify actual places that have real USGS topographic names that my gut reaction would prefer to. But in this era we mindful explorers need to consider the big picture.
I think we should have an HST meet up at Lost Lake (or Long Lake or Blue Lake or ....) but not specify which lake and not allow communication prior to the meet up and then see where people end up.
Mike
Who can't do everything he used to and what he can do takes a hell of a lot longer!
SSSdave wrote:Agree with your behavior analysis, well described thankyou. Thus your suspicions of refraining from cool naming are probably wise. Same glorying name recognition behavior likely has to do with why so many people climb famous peaks like Half Dome, Mount Ranier, and Everest...
Some people do climb those peaks for name recognition but the flaw in your logic is that the name itself is the important part. It's not. It only becomes significant when attached to a perceived high value destination.
oldranger wrote:I think we should have an HST meet up at Lost Lake (or Long Lake or Blue Lake or ....) but not specify which lake and not allow communication prior to the meet up and then see where people end up.
The place gets the perceived high value because of the marketing it gets, but I would submit that Half Dome gets a ton more visitors because it is given a huge stamp of uniqueness -- everyone thinks it's the only dome worth visiting because everyone else does. Like Whitney is the highest peak, or Everest. People are literally dying to do the unique thing. The irony being it's the least unique thing out there. Yay, I did something 50,000 other people did this year!
It's also not named Grueling Hike That Will Destroy Your Feet Dome. Or Devil's Dome, or Tourist Trap With 400 People Taking Selfies, or Bring your Gloves Dome. Dehydration Dome would be the most apt description from what I've seen. The name is part of the marketing.
Marketing? I think people are attracted to climbing the tallest or hardest or coolest things. You might view those motivations as ignoble but it's very common, probably in our genes. My point is that the name is secondary to the destination. Half Dome is already a fairly pedestrian name. Giving it a less appealing name wouldn't affect the numbers attracted to it.
Tom_H wrote:I agree with keeping the name generic; simple accuracy is better. An author can describe the qualities in the text and give ratings of the route as desired.
Let me take the opportunity to promote WD's book. I have a copy and it is simply the most accurate and professionally produced backcountry guidebook that I have ever seen.
ditto Tom's entire comment
WD's book is excellent, the gold standard of beta.
A catchy name starts a spiral of fame/publicity/fame. . . .ala Roper's SHR. . . . so use/abuse is a concern. So maybe a suggested string(s) of described routes adding up to a through route without naming it a through route? Name the book chapter with the cool name, but leave the actual route to be assembled by the reader?
The topic of popularizing the wilderness has been long debated with no resolution. Once the guide book path is started, might as well finish it. Go WD!!
I struggle with these thoughts too. The thing that keeps me going back and forth is density. On the one hand, if there are 100 people in an area and I want to be alone, I'd actually prefer that the people are concentrated along a popular trail rather than dispersed evenly throughout. If they're all on one trail, I can just avoid that area. If they are dispersed evenly throughout, I will likely have to camp near somebody. On the other hand if the people are all on one trail, then that one trail gets trashed.
I think cool route names are fun, but they don't make me want to do a trip any more or less---I'm much more interested in what the route has to offer. I spend a lot of time considering where to go, when to go, and where to make camp based on things like morning vs afternoon sun, will the thing I most want to look at be backlit at the time of day when I'm there, will the sunrise or sunset be better from where I'm camped, will I get sunshine in my camp early (yes please!!) to warm me up in the morning, etc etc. I think that seasoned backpackers are probably similar to me, but that newbies are very checkbox oriented, so the names appeal to them more.
Another thing that we're conflating a bit here is the historical trail names vs modern guidebook names. The JMT and the HST are both historical, official trail names shown on maps, while the Circle of Solitude is just a name a guidebook author (Mike White) made up. I don't think that many people know what the Circle of Solitude is. I do think a lot of people know what the JMT is.
I think that the huge spike in the JMT interest is tied to that book come movie Wild by Cheryl Strayed. The movie grossed $38M at the box office in 2015. That's about 5 million viewings. The book reached the #1 spot on the NYT best seller list in 2012 and was part of Oprah's book club. People research the PCT and realize it's really way too much, but they find the JMT is part of it and arguably the prettiest part and so they opt for that.
I do love weird historical place names, though, but I think that's a different category than what we're really talking about here. I just love thinking about how names evolved and how many of them are so literal. I love to imagine early Sierra explorers saying things like "Yes, it's over there by that big wet meadow. You know, the one near that thing that looks like a whale's back."
In the end, I think education is the biggest issue. I think a lot of people don't know why some LNT practices exist, but if they were better informed about why, they might be more likely to follow them. For example, washing dishes directly in a water source seems really natural if you don't think about it too much. This is the biggest mistake that I see inexperienced backpackers make. I think that instead of reading you the rules of the wilderness to get a permit, you should have to take a quiz on LNT. Then any wrong answers should be explained in detail. Frequent permit-getters could get something like a license so that they don't have to do the quiz all the time.
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