Mt. Evans, names after John Evans, govern of the territory of Colorado and leader in construction of the railroad

Out on a hike with my good friends Linda and Larry, we stopped to take a break.  As we snacked on power bars and trail mix, we gazed upon the high peaks that seemed to surround us in each direction.  We pulled out a map to look up the names of the peaks, as well as some of the surrounding lakes.  Florence Lake, Alta Peak — where do the names come from?

Some white person many years ago came upon these peaks and decided to bestow it with a name.  Many times, lakes and peaks got bestowed with the name of a daughter or beloved wife.  Of course, for every peak that got named by an explorer, names were already given by the Native Americans who frequented the land far before white people came.

One of the more interesting stories I ever heard about a name had to do with Yosemite National Park. While attending a ranger program, I learned the story behind the name Yosemite.  Yosemite is an Indian word, that white people thought meant “grizzly” as in grizzly bear because they heard the Indians saying it.  In fact, the word the Indians were saying translated to something else entirely — “there are killers among them” – a reference to the white people who were invading their hunting lands.

Other times, names are more generic.  Seems like in the Rocky Mountains, there are a million Crater Lakes, with Blue Lake rivaling it in terms of frequency.  Those are not so hard to figure out how they got their names.  The color of many of our alpine lakes can be stunningly blue or aquamarine.  But where the blue comes from is more interesting.

This description from another blog describes it best — it’s the glaciers and the melting snow and ice that give it the intense blue color from the ground up rock that stays on the service, and how it reflects light.  One of the most beautiful lakes I have ever seen in the mountains, Precipice Lake, had this impossibly green-blue color that defied reality.  Its name comes from its location hanging just below the crest of the Sierra the Great Western Divide.

My home town of Nederland itself has its own interesting story behind its names that harkens back to the days of mining.  When a silver strike led to boom town of Caribou four miles west of Nederland, they needed a mill built closer to process the silver ore.  A mill was built 2000 feet below the silver mines.  Dutch investors bought out the mines in 1873 and started referring to the area where the mill was as the “low-lands” or Nederland.  Netherlands translated into Dutch is Nederland.  Despite the town  having several other names including Brownsville, Dayton, and Middle Boulder Crossing, Nederland stuck.

If you want to know more about place names in Colorado, consider consulting a great book called Colorado Place Names by William Bright.  You can find out about your favorite mountain towns, peaks or lakes from Leadville to Longs Peak to Brainard Lake.  (Hint, many are names after famous military men or explorers).

Who knows, maybe one day I’ll discover a previously undiscovered peak of my own and name it Mt. Leslie?

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