Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Whitney History

Found a Cool web page with some good Whitney history.

http://www.snwburd.com/bob/etymology/whitney.html

Thanks VCHS! This was a really informative report, albeit a long one. It was interesting reading about the controversy of who climbed it first, how it was finally named Mount Whitney (sounds SO much better than Fisherman's Peak), that John Muir was the first person to climb what is now the Mountaineers route, etc.

...and THANK GOD they didn't put the tram in!!!

Interesting analogy between Whitney and l'Aiguille du Midi made in that article. I was over in Geneva on business a few years ago and had Saturday free before I had to head back to the 'states, so I took a bus tour down to Chamonix and rode the tram up to the top of l'Aiguille du Midi. Made me think seriously about going back someday and climbing Mont Blanc. (The tour guide mistakenly called Mont Blanc the high point of Europe...which I corrected, that being Mount Elbrus.)

Shots of l'Aiguille du Midi are on my <a href="http://www.mtritter.org">WWW site</a> under the "travels" section...

I would much prefer Mt. Whitney to have retained the Paiute Indian name of "Too-Man-Go-Yah", which translates into english as "Very Old Man". To quote the website "The indians beleived that the spirit resposible for the destiny of their people lived inside the mountain, and from his high perch he observed the indians and noted their behavior".

This is much more magical and wonderful than naming the mountain after the head of the California geological survey. My father worked for the BLM and Soil Conservation Service, and I beleive was in charge of the geological survey for Zions National Park and you don't see a Mt. Lamar there do you?
I'm happy that Mt. McKinnley is now being refered to as Denali, which is what the native people called it for centuries. It's kind of obnoxious and big headed of us white men to come through and rename everything, don't you think?

Thanks for the information it was enlightening. I will from this point forward refer to the mountain I love as Too-Man-Go-Yah.

That's interesting, Mason Mason. Thank you.