Brief by Allen Best
Geography – December 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine
It’s now official. The U.S. Board of Geographic Names has named two hitherto unnamed summits near Granite after Carl Blaurock and Bill Ervin, who were the first and second mountaineers to bag all the peaks then considered fourteeners.
The higher summit, Mount Blaurock, is 13,616 feet. It’s just east of LaPlata Peak. Ervin was something of a lesser mountaineer, and as such, the mountain named in his honor is 13,531 feet.
Pointedly, both are outside of the Collegiate Peaks Wilderness Area. The U.S. Board of Geographic Names frowns on naming peaks inside wilderness areas and also makes a point of not riling up the locals. One or the other of these two policies torpedoed two other proposals to name summits after Blaurock, one near Minturn and the second near Lake City.
Three other proposals before the federal board involve geographic features in Central Colorado — two of them for the same basic piece of land.
Lowell Forbes, who had nominated the peaks near Granite, is now trying to get a 13,370-foot ridge near St. Elmo named Mountain Morning Ridge. The ridge is two miles southwest of Mt. Antero, and 2.5 miles northwest of Tabeguache at the head of Baldwin Creek.
The highest point in that ridge is proposed by Woody Smith to be named in honor of Mary Cronin, the first women and the fourth person overall to climb all the fourteeners. He already has the nod of Chaffee County. Smith, incidentally, was responsible for the proposal to name a couple of mountains near Lake City Blaurock and Ervin.
Jennifer Runyon, staff researcher for the U.S. Board of Geographic Names, says that the two proposals in Chaffee County might be compatible, with the mile-long ridge named Mountain Morning Ridge and the high point named after Cronin. In any event, Forest Service and Chaffee County support are critical.
“Sitting here in Washington D.C., we really don’t care what people call it, as long as the local authorities agree,” says Runyon.
Finally, Jack Williams of Florissant wants to shuffle the names of peaks near the Grand Sand Dunes National Park. He proposes to replace the name Carbonate Mountain in favor of Mosca Peak, because it is near Mosca Pass. That is, he claims, the original name bestowed by Spanish Explorers. He also wants to get rid of Mount Zwischen, a German name meaning “between,” in favor of Medano Peak. Alas, he seems to be coming up short with the appropriate letters for local, state, and federal officials that are needed to get his proposal past the U.S. Board of Geographic Names.
