To Rename Rainier?
Plus, Bay Area Brunch Hikes, the right way to drink water, name a new mushroom, AllTrails drama, and more
howdy
Over the past few years, there has been—in my opinion—a rather overdue effort to rename geographic features that contain offensive or derogatory names. In 2022, the Department of the Interior officially (finally) renamed 650 locations that used a slur for Indigenous women. There has also been a slate of names changed due to their namesake being, say, responsible for massacres or traitors to the United States.
Unless you’ve been in a total media blackout, you also probably know there’s almost always a backlash to that effort. People in Fresno County were so miffed that a valley’s
name was changed they launched a ballot initiative to seize control of naming from the state and federal government (the initiative only got 36% of the vote, thankfully).
Renaming places is nothing new—Kurt Repanshek over at National Parks Traveler has a great, quick dive into a series of name change requests for Washington’s Mount Rainier around the turn of the century. Washington State wanted to change it to Mount Tacoma because Rainier was named for a member of British Captain George Vancouver’s crew, and Vancouver “was an enemy to our country” while sailing in 1792 (IMHO, it’s a bit of a stretch to call a British sailor poking around the Northwest nine years after the American Revolution “an enemy to our country,” but I guess there were still hard feelings?).
Ultimately the USGS put the kibosh on the name change because the state didn’t petition to change the dozens of other names Vancouver tossed around in the Northwest (including Mount St. Helens, Mount Baker, Puget Sound, Whidbey Island, Point Arthur, and others), and they said it would be “a blow to the stability of geographic and historical nomenclature, and a reflection upon the intelligence of the American people” … in other words, a lot of work, and we might look dumb to the fancy pantses in Europe. They also questioned the scholarship of calling the mountain “Tacoma,” because there were many different names for the peak from nearby indigenous nations, which seems kind of like a cop-out to me.
I do think the most important takeaway is this: societal values and norms change, often dramatically. And that means naming things after people can sometimes be … to use the parlance of our times … problematic. That’s one reason the American Ornithological Society is renaming all the birds named after people to instead describe how they actually look and act.
Naming places after people can also have a quietly ominous, omnipresent negative effect on people living in the shadow of their history. Cherokee writer and historian Stephen Carr Hamilton details the seemingly endless colonial monikers within a few mile radius of his home in Port Townsend, Washington in this blog post, and to be honest, it’s a LOT of baggage.
Given the complexity, I do think the current USGS philosophy of using mostly geographic, historical, and indigenous replacement names is a solid tactic. So who knows? Maybe Rainier will someday go back to an older name. The Puyallup Tribe started a push for Tahoma / Tacoma back in 2021, and Mount McKinley changed back to Denali in 2016 …
RELATED:
Indigenous names for the major peaks in the Pacific Northwest
The renaming of Ballard Mountain in the Santa Monica Mountains in 2009, and a documentary on the peak’s history.
Modern Hiking
Good stuff from the Modern Hiker site
Bay Area Brunch Hikes
Look, if there’s one thing I love more than hiking, it’s breakfast pastries. But WHY MAKE ME CHOOSE, Cruel World, when I can instead just take a look at Melissa Ozbek’s excellent roundup of Bay Area Brunch Hikes, which went live on the site this week. It’s divided into different regions of the Bay Area, and each trail has some killer nearby food recommendations for your carbo-reloading. Don’t say we never did anything nice for you.
You can thank me by sending pictures and extremely detailed descriptions of your pastries. Bless.
Your Parks
Your Places
On Hydration
Headlines of hikers getting themselves into sticky situations make for good clicks, so it’s rare to go a week without seeing at least one or two of those stories crossing the virtual desk … but this week, I saw a pair of cautionary tales that framed an important issue as we start getting into the warmer summer months: hydration.
First of all, you’ve got to make sure you have enough water, period. A couple hiking just south of Joshua Tree National Park were rescued earlier this month after running out of water, hiking on days where the temperature highs ranged from 100 to 105 degrees Fahrenheit. Both hikers survived, and details are scarce, but in the video and images released, it looks like the couple only had a few handheld water bottles with them (also note: when it’s really hot out, it’s also OK to NOT hike).
But also, chugging water isn’t enough. An experienced hiker had to be helped on a short, easy trail when his body started cramping and spasming. He had more than enough water, but he was lacking electrolytes. It’s important to always have some salty snacks with you when you’re on those long, sweaty treks to keep your muscles working. So don’t forget to include some of those in your summer hiking packs!
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Tech Talk
Gadgets, Technology, and Hype
AllTrails Keeps Going
Last week I mentioned the ‘Sherlocking’ AllTrails got from Apple in its annual WWDC conference, but the popular hiking app seems to be taking it well. Shortly after the conference, AllTrails rolled out a software update that added some nice features for AllTrails+ users (annual fee), including curated collections, landing pages for national parks, and some tweaks to the search function that helps you find what you’re looking for a bit better. I think the idea of “subscribing” to software is a little annoying (anyone else prefer to just, like, BUY a copy of Microsoft Word every few years?) but for apps like this that are being updated and maintained and added to, I think it makes a little more sense … however …
Everest on AllTrails
As I’ve said before, I like AllTrails for broadly searching out some trail options, but its reliance on crowd-sourced and AI-generated copy is still a major shortcoming. To wit: Mount Everest is on AllTrails. And the overview description, which was absolutely never touched by human hands, reads:
Proceed cautiously on this 27.7-mile out-and-back trail near Khumjung, Province 1. Generally considered a highly challenging route, it should only be attempted by experienced adventurers. This is a very popular area for backpacking, camping, and hiking, so you’ll likely encounter other people while exploring. The trail is open year-round and is beautiful to visit anytime.
So … yeah. And then, of course, you have the comments and trail reviews, some of which are actually from people who have summitted and most of which are people who are trying to be funny with one-star reviews about the lack of an REI nearby, which is a joke that has definitely run its course.
There’s a fun piece in Outside magazine on all of this (though it also sits on the joke a bit too long), and although I don’t think anyone is going to just stumble on Mount Everest and show up after clicking a trail in an app, that is true for a lot of local hikes, and I’m betting we’ve all had an experience of chatting with some underprepared folks at a trailhead who were looking for something they saw briefly on the internet. I’ll say it again for the people in the back: read (and support!) local trail guides and authors!
RELATED:
Creators of all types are joining ‘LLM-free’ movements.
Leafing Out
Plants!
On Mushrooms
No, not that way. But definitely reading about them!
If you’re outdoorsy, as your outdoorsy social group expands, eventually you will find someone who is, like, SUPER into mushrooms—by which I mean IDing, foraging, cooking, and trading the fungi. I moved to Oregon and about six months later I was gifted a board game about foraging for morels (it’s fun!).
Anyway, did you know scientists estimate we’ve only described about 5% of the world’s fungal species? That’s wild! And it means that when mushrooms are out, if you get out there and make some observations on something like iNaturalist, there’s a pretty good chance you might be the very first person to see or discover a new species!
In this great deep-dive in the New York Times (unlocked!), Mandie Quark, a mycologist at the Fungal Diversity Survey, says:
We could probably go outside right now here in California — or really, wherever you are at in North America — and we could easily find a new species of mushroom or fungus that hasn’t been described.
All the more incentive to get out there and start looking around! Also, if you’re the first person to spot a new species, you might even get dibs on naming it …
One More Thing
Oh yeah, before I go …
This week, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy announced he would advocate for social media platforms to have a warning label advising that they may damage the mental health of adolescents.
Do I agree? Yes. Do I also think that label should apply to adults? Oh yes. Do I think this is ever, in a million years, going to actually happen here in the United States, where this label requires an act of Congress and we still haven’t passed the most basic of modern internet and technology laws because lobbyists have purchased lawmakers for their companies and we can’t upset the stock market’s magic lines it has very sensitive feelings DON’T LOOK DIRECTLY AT THE STOCK MARKET!? Absolutely not.
But still, you love to see it. And you never know … Los Angeles Unified School District just banned cellphone use starting in January. So that’s a start!
OK, unplugging and going outside now.
Happy Trails,
