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A Mountain by Any
Other Name

A MOUNTAIN’S NAME can add much to its allure. Who would not want to pit one’s wits against The Executioner on Skye, stand at the seemingly scrumptious summit of Yorkshire’s Roseberry Topping or see how flat the summit of South Africa’s Table Mountain really is?

The simple appellation Mont Blanc (White Mountain) perfectly suits the snow dome that is the highest mountain in Western Europe. What more solid name could there be for a Big Mountain in Scotland than Gaelic’s sturdy Ben More? What a tale could be woven around the Swiss triumvirate of the Eiger, the Jungfrau and the Mönch (the Ogre, the Maiden and the Monk).

Scotland too has its Maiden (A’ Mhaighdean) as well as a Sugar Loaf (Suilven), a Forge (An Teallach), a Devil’s Point and even the enchanting Hill of the Round Corrie of Little Blisters (Braigh Coire Chruin-bhalgain). The island of Rum has a clutch of fine old Norse mountain names such as Askival, Hallival and Trallval. England has its imaginatively-named Saddleback, Wales its very own Matterhorn, which goes by the appropriately abrupt appellation Cnicht. The names of British mountain and hill ranges are equally enticing. England has its Malverns and Mendips, Wales its Glyders and Rhinogs, Scotland its Mamores and Cuillin.

The names are of mostly ancient origin. Most great mountain names are. In olden times, no one would have named a summit Sgurr Julius Caesar, Mount Ethelred the Unready or Pik Ivan the Terrible. Not so these days. Personal names are invading our mountains.

The most climbed 7,000m peak in the world stands in the Pamirs on the border of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It was originally named Mount Kaufman for the first governor of Turkestan. During the years of the Soviet Union it was renamed Pik Lenin. Not even Russians want to climb that today. Tajikistan now calls it Abu Ali Ibn Sino, while Kyrgyzstan calls it Pik Sary Tash. The highest peak in Tajikistan was named Pik Stalin when it was discovered in 1933. It became Pik Communism in 1962 and is now named Pik Ismoil Somoni for the ruler of an ancient Persian dynasty.

By all means name a New York airport for American President J. F. Kennedy, but not the highest unclimbed peak in North America. That fate befell a 4,000m mountain in Canada in 1965. In the USA itself, presidential names are commonplace: Mount Adams, Mount Roosevelt, Mount Woodrow Wilson… Many states have a Mount Lincoln. Colorado has two. The highest mountain in New Hampshire is Mount Washington. Vermont even has a Presidential Range with no fewer than 12 peaks named for former presidents.

There is as yet no Mount Nixon, and this exemplifies one of the main problems with this approach to nomenclature. Whereas mountains are eternal (as good as, compared to our own time span), political worthiness is both ephemeral and disputable.

Castle Mountain in Alberta was renamed Mount Eisenhower following World War Two, but after growing objections it reverted to its original (and more imaginative) name in 1979. Alaska’s Mount McKinley, the highest mountain in North America, was named in the 19th century for the 25th US president and is still known as such by the US Board of Geographical Names. The Alaska Board of Geographical Names, on the other hand, calls it Denali, its original name in the Athabaskan language. Attempts to have Denali replace McKinley nationwide have been blocked by the former President’s home state of Ohio. At the time of writing, a proposal to change the name of Nevada’s Frenchman Mountain to Mount Reagan is causing similar political waves.

Phoenix’s Squaw Peak… or is it Piestewa Peak?

It’s not just politicians that are the subject of misplaced memorialism. Mount Whitney in the Sierra Nevada was named for the head of the California Geological Survey. The same range has an Evolution Basin whose surrounding mountains are named for pioneers of evolution theory such as Darwin, Spencer and Huxley.

In Phoenix, Arizona, Squaw Peak (named for the Algonquian term for a woman) was renamed Piestewa Peak in 2008 to honour a soldier killed in Iraq. And what are we to make of Utah’s Mollie’s Nipple, said to have been named for a rancher’s wife?

The USA is the main but not the only culprit. Kyrgyzstan has a Pik Boris Yeltsin, a Pik Vladimir Putin and even a Pik Santa Claus. The highest mountains in Columbia are Mount Simon Bolivar and Mount Cristobal Colon (Christopher Columbus). Mount Vinson, the highest peak in Antarctic, is named for the US Congressman who supported Antarctic research.

The issue is not one of worthiness but of whether mountain tops are the right place to honour anyone. If needs must, there are other ways of showing love and respect in the wilds. California’s John Muir Trail honours the pioneer of conservation. The Scottish Mountaineering Club Hut on Ben Nevis commemorates Charles Inglis Clark, a club member who was killed in World War One. The Abruzzi Spur on K2 celebrates a 1909 expedition led by the Duke of the Abruzzi.

One of the reasons we go to the hills is ‘to get away from it all’, and the modern trend to fill the wilderness with reminders of what we’re trying to get away from is as reprehensible as leaving litter and building personal or religious memorials. The most meaningful and beautiful names generally derive from to a time when our forebears were more in touch with the land. They used their imaginations to name mountains for colours, shapes, flora, fauna, folklore…

In the UK we are blessed with some wonderful mountain toponyms: Helvellyn and Crinkle Crags, Tryfan and Elidir Fawr, Lochnagar and Ladhar Bheinn (Larven)… What would you rather climb? France’s Mont Blanc or Mont Sarkozy? Ireland’s Purple Mountain or Oscar Wilde Mountain? Scotland’s Ben Nevis or Ben Bonar Law (the 1920s Prime Minister)? Let us give the mountains names befitting a timespan that long predates and will long outdate the comparatively petty concerns of homo sapiens.