Have you ever tried to name a geographic feature?

[cgundersen]

Hi Everyone,
I just submitted the following topic in The Campfire section, but I figured it would get more eyes here:

The root of this post goes back several years when my wife and I cut off the JMT before Muir Pass to visit those lakes (like Hester and Ladder) on the East side of the Black Divide. After a long talus slog, we wound up at Lake 11,654 which is a tad southeast of the Black Giant. With the angle of the sun, the lake's water looked luminously black and its surface was glinting with millions of diamond-like sparkles. Ever since, we (anecdotally) refer to this lake as Black Diamond Lake.

It finally dawned on me that there is a formal procedure by which the Domestic Names Committee (DNC) of the USGS's Board on Geographic Names can be petitioned to add a name to geographical features that currently lack a name (if approved, the name will then appear on USGS topo maps). And this prompted two questions:

First, has anyone affiliated with HST ever submitted such a proposal? Please chime in with your experience if you have.

Second, is anyone interested in helping me give this a trial run? I downloaded the online form for proposing names that is available on the DNC webpage, and for locations in wilderness areas, the DNC demands explicit justification for "saddling" a wilderness site with a name (this strikes me as a bit reactionary, because names are prominent throughout wilderness areas). If you are willing to be quoted as supporting this effort, I'll include your name in the application (or at least, the number of "ayes" from HSTers). I also suspect that a few HSTers will regard this effort as worse than leaving cairns in obscure places, but hey, all the DNC has to do is say no. And I'm happy to document the number of supporters versus contrarians.

Cameron

[giantbrookie]

I like descriptive names of geographic places/features, such as you propose, because we have so few of them in our culture. The vast majority of our place names are named after people, or something related to various aspects of human history, be it somewhat significant or notorious (Convict Lake), or in some cases absurd and related to one person's personal experience (such as "Broken Finger Peak"). We tend lack names such as Denali (The Great One) or Goddess Mother of the Snow (Chomolungma = Mt Everest) or Machapuchare (The Fish's Tail) of the sort that are the norm in other cultures. We have a few precious ones such as Cloudripper, Picture Puzzle, Cathedral Peak, Unicorn Peak, Bridalveil Falls, the Minarets (collectively rather than individually), Thousand Island Lake, but these constitute such a tiny fraction of our place names

Black Diamond Lake sounds good to me. I don't think anybody will confuse that name with a corporate sponsorship (of a gear company).

Cheers,

John

P.S. Even if official channels don't approve the name, it is always fun to have your own name for a place you've been to. A favorite for me and Judy is "The Emerald Staircase", which are unnamed lakes downstream of Little Bear Lake in NW Yosemite. Unfortunately our favorite unofficial lake group names have a history of their trout populations being eradicated. Gillnets in the case of the Emerald Staircase, and cessation of air dropping in the case of our most notorious unofficial name: The Land of the Giant Brookies. We've also come up with our own names for named features. Ritter and Banner are tall and dark and Ritter means "Knight" in German, so we've referred to the pair as the Dark Knights (I suppose Lord of the Rings fans could also call them something like The Two Nazgul).

[cgundersen]

Hi John,
Great; thanks for the swift (and elaborate) thumbs up. So far it's 3 ayes to 0 nays, but I'm inclined to give a couple weeks for votes to come in!
Cameron

[SSSdave]

Never considered making a name request because I expect they infrequently allow naming many new features as they probably have a quota per decade. That will allow those in the future an opportunity to name things.

Fore years I've dabbled in map making. caltopo makes that a lot easier now. And when I do make custom makes, I always have some fun naming various features. The beloware 2 small crops from a large 4800x3840 pixel map I'd made for the Upper Kern Basin that is probably good enough to be a commercial product. Used in during my 2019 11-day trip over Shepherd Pass.

(mouse select to enlarge)

UKern-cr2.jpg

UKern-cr3.jpg

[balzaccom]

Giantbrookie, I've always called your Emerald Staircase the Barret Lakes, since they are all part of that creek's drainage. Your name is far more poetic.

[c9h13no3]

I've always heard that renaming a feature in federally designated wilderness requires an act of congress.

[Enigmagic]

First, has anyone affiliated with HST ever submitted such a proposal? Please chime in with your experience if you have.

I have submitted corrections for errors in the GNIS database and have never received a response... Last year they pulled numerous classes from the GNIS database because of (apparent) lack of resources to maintain all the names. While the BGN may not be GNIS team, I wouldn't be too surprised if they ignore emails as well. Maybe official submissions have a timeline for rejection?

Not sure about the legal requirements for naming but the two recent ones I'm aware of (Mount Andrea Lawrence and Sky Point) both went through congress.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/112th-con ... e-bill/925
https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-con ... e-bill/381

[Gogd]

We tend lack names such as Denali (The Great One) or Goddess Mother of the Snow (Chomolungma = Mt Everest) or Machapuchare (The Fish's Tail) of the sort that are the norm in other cultures.

Even if official channels don't approve the name, it is always fun to have your own name for a place you've been to.

Oh, these place have ancient names, just ask the Piute and other indigenous cultures that inhabited the geography surrounding the Sierra. But the White Man choose to not to respect the existing, local cultures, and imposed their own culture upon all manner of these people, including what to call the features of their home turf. Heck it was relatively recent, that the USGS was persuaded to revert back to referring to Mt McKinley by its pre-existing name (Denali).

There are three sister peaks I'd like to name: I'd call them "Yonder", "Beyond", and "Nuffsaid". The backstory is too long to relate herein, but not necessary to appreciate the glib satire behind these labels.

Yes, its fun to have nicknames for places. There was one location where we used to cultivate a favorite herb. It was accessed via an extremely rugged ravine to travel, through which a small, unnamed creek flowed, with three tall falls blocking access, above, to our garden plot. The location of the plot was very beautiful: a narrow gulley with perennial flowers set amid a mountainside grove of conifers and live oaks, featuring a small window through the canopy that framed a view of downtown LA, 20 miles off in the distance. The whole effect made you feel like you were in a location that inspired the Lord of the Rings set designers, with the Wizard of Oz's Emerald City off in the distance. We called the creek "S_ _ t Creek". Thus whenever conversation mentioned the garden plot, we referred to it as Up S_ _t Creek. No paddles were required to get there, but good rock climbing skills and the willingness to take on very rotten, slippery wet, moss covered choss were a must to ascend the falls.

We also have a favorite camp site we use several times a year, located in the Mojave Desert. We called it "The Ranch". It was actually little more than a flat spot, a humble dry camp set amid a stack of boulders with few California Junipers offering shade. But it was situated high on an alluvial plain that offered solitude and an outstanding vista. It was also just off a trail that eventually became very popular, and the park service eventually imposed a no camping restriction on this area to protect the Big Horn sheep. So we found a more remote location outside the restricted zone, naming it "Camp II"; and thereafter referred to the former location as "Camp I".

Ed

[sgodgreeneyed]

I can't say if anyone from HST has submitted a proposal before, but it's worth giving it a shot!

[Gogd]

I can't say if anyone from HST has submitted a proposal before, but it's worth giving it a shot!

I've read at least two other, separate posts of people making the effort.

The link below, along with other posts in the same topic thread, refer one of those attempts, in this case to name a peak after Orland Bartholomew, who who worked in various backcountry occupations in the Western Sierra, including stints as a stream and snow surveyor. He is famous among Sierra wilderness ski trekker for an epic, 300 mile, solo, High Sierra journey he did in the dead of winter in 1929. https://www.highsierratopix.com/communi ... 4#p103274
It appears the effort to dedicate a peak in Bartholomew's name was to no avail, as I've seen no indication the USGS map data base this nomination ever got approved. So yea, it's tough to get a mountain name made official.

Ed