EISPIRATEN

So the recent thread on "who was Tom Sloan" got me thinking of the ephemeral nature of the people's interactions with the San Gabriel Mountains. It's maybe not unlike Southern California itself in that it seems to completely remake itself and start over again each decade.

I think the trail over Tom Sloan saddle was built with his name in mind, but it seems like that first generation of the Angeles Forest Reserve guys had a particular fondness for overriding some of the existing popular names of landmarks with commemorations to their own. It's interesting to learn about the individuals behind these names as they obviously had great merit. However, I do lament the loss of some of the previous names that might have been equally colorful or commemorated equally deserving individuals. Here are a few examples:

The biggest change: The Sierra Madre mountains were renamed the San Gabriel Mountains.

Pine Flats was renamed Charlton Flats
Sister Elsie Peak was renamed Mt. Lukens

There were a number of popular names, not official and hard to say if they would have stuck, but:
The Commodore (in honor of Commodore Perry Switzer) was renamed San Gabriel Peak by the survey party.
Walker peak (named after the original patron/sponsor of Switer's Camp) is now known as Deception Peak, I think.
West Fork Divide was renamed Red Box
George's Gap has not been renamed, but pretty much vanished due to its status as a mere highway turnout on ACH.

A lot of the old trails were named for the individuals who built them, the property they crossed or the camps they serviced:
Switzer's trail
Sturdevant trail
Wilson's trail
On the other hand, the first trails built by the Forest Reserve were often called "Government Trail" at least in the trail camp brochures and literature.

There must be dozens of others - Please chime in with examples of your own.

A pet project of mine has been to reconcile some 19th century accounts of landmarks with the current nomenclature and usage - the problem is that so many of the popular names passed out of memory after the era of the trail camps came to an end and reading old accounts of trips is almost like reading hieroglyphics.

Easy one for me is Timber Mountain, which used to be Chapman. The register box in the tree still says Chapman in weld bead.
The benchmark on top of Baden-Powell says West Baldy.

In addition to The Commodore, San Gabriel Peak was also Observatory Peak

Magic Mtn was Mt. Layne and Iron Mtn

Hoyt Mtn was Mt. Washburn

Throop Peak was North Baldy

Mt. Lawlor was Square-Top and Table Mtn

Vetter Mtn was Pine Mtn

Occidental Peak was Precipicio Peak

Mt. Harvard was El Picacho, The Hogback and South Gable Promontory

Yale Peak was Pyramid Peak

Mt. Lowe was Oak Mtn and Brown's Peak

Grizzly Point was Giddings Peak

There are a bunch of others I'll have to get to later.

Thank you, Sean. That's a great list.

Don't forget Mt. Vesuvius for the pyromaniacs at Mt. Lowe.

I think the actual identity of Mt. Washburn has yet to be definitively corroborated either way - all brochure maps, contemporary news articles and trail accounts I've found would point to it being further east than Hoyt, right above Switzers - But Will Thrall mentions it in passing in his overview of geology in Trails and ascribes 4500 ft elevation to the ridge that it's part of so it's still somewhat of a conundrum I think.

Wasn't it Baden Powell that was called North Baldy or Something-or-other Baldy?

walker wrote: ↑Wasn't it Baden Powell that was called North Baldy or Something-or-other Baldy?

You're right - I said West Baldy above but it was North Baldy.

People often confuse the name of a benchmark with the name (or former name) of a peak, but officially it's just the name of the benchmark, which is sometimes labelled for a landmark visible from that peak. However, in this case, there were two "North Baldy" peaks. Baden-Powell was the first to be changed in 1931, then Throop in 1961. See the GNIS data here and here.



Though I first saw Throop referred to as "North Baldy" in Trails Magazine (Spring 1935).



As for Hoyt being Washburn, recall that Thrall is describing "blocks" of the range separated by the faults. I think the logic points toward Hoyt (4404') because the alleged elevation of Washburn (4500') is fairly close, and Hoyt's prominence between major canyons makes it a good candidate for the lower end of the southern block, which Thrall roughly matches to the lower end of the northern block at Mt. Layne (Magic Mtn) with an elevation of 4856 feet. I don't think any other peak in the area makes sense for Washburn. They're either not as close in elevation, not west of Switzer's, or on a splinter ridge.

Waterman Mountain is usually referred to as Mt. Waterman, but the original name was Lady Waterman's Peak http://www.hundredpeaks.org/signatures/14a.htm