An effort to name a Colorado high peak after a pioneering female mountaineer has proved to be an uphill battle for proponents.
On the surface, the request by the Colorado Mountain Club is simple: Dedicate an unnamed 13,591-foot Chaffee County mountain for Agnes Vaille, a celebrated alpinist who perished on a risky winter ascent of Longs Peak in 1925.
But at a time when the number of unnamed summits in Colorado is dwindling, the proposal has met resistance from Chaffee County commissioners and the state Board of Geographic Names.
The county commissioners point out Vaille already has a scenic waterfall and a stone shelter on Longs Peak named in her memory.
“Let’s save some geologic features to bear the names of other past and future Coloradans,” wrote a commentator named “Iceman” on the online forum.
The final decision will be made by the U.S. Geological Survey’s Board on Geographic Names, which tends to defer to local wishes and historic or popular designations.
But not always.
“I’ve been surprised by the board on more than one occasion,” said Lou Yost, executive secretary of the names board. “They’ve approved of names when I didn’t think they would and turned down names that I thought would pass easily.”
The push to name peaks in Colorado is colliding with shrinking real estate. Only seven of the highest 100 peaks in Colorado still do not have names.
Would-be namers now are seeking less-prominent subsidiary peaks.
There are 20 naming proposals pending for peaks in Colorado before the federal board.
Among the contenders is “Rejection Point” on Chaffee County’s Gladstone Ridge, honoring “all people who shunned or were shunned by the Ivy League and those who chose a less conventional and more adventurous path in life.”
Maybe Rejection Point is fitting because the Collegiate Peaks were claimed by alumni of Ivy League universities.
Harvard and Yale were named in 1869 by a geology professor associated with both schools who led students on an early-day survey.
The names Princeton and Columbia later were added in keeping with the theme.
Mount Oxford was named by Jerry Hart, a former president of the American Alpine Club and a Rhodes Scholar.
The official naming of landmarks has always been an inexact art, filled with idiosyncrasies.
Colorado has at least a half-dozen peaks named Red, and climbers in the San Juan Mountains are confounded by two neighboring fourteeners named after the same person, topographer A.D. Wilson of the historic Hayden survey.
Anyone can suggest any name for any geologic feature – even those already named.
The federal board considers about 350 proposals annually, usually agreeing to adopt names that have been used locally.
Under federal rules, however, landmarks cannot be named for people until at least five years after their deaths.
So in the 1930s, when Coloradans wanted to celebrate aviator Charles Lindbergh, they had to settle for his nickname in christening craggy Lone Eagle Peak in what is now the Indian Peaks Wilderness Area.
In the case of Agnes Vaille, there is no dispute of her place in mountaineering history.
Vaille was renowned as a bold climber who was well on her way to becoming the first woman to scale all of the state’s 14,000-foot peaks.
Vaille, a secretary with the Denver Civic and Commercial Association, was 34 when she froze to death on the slopes of Longs Peak on Jan. 12, 1925.
She and Walter Kiener had tried several times to make a winter ascent of the daunting East Face – once turning back just 50 feet from the summit ridge – when they set out on a Saturday afternoon for the planned two-day climb.
They reached the summit about 4 a.m. Monday and had begun the descent down the north side when Vaille fell and slid about 150 feet, according to an account in Jack Moomaw’s classic book, “Recollections of a Rocky Mountain Ranger.”
Unhurt but exhausted, Vaille told Kiener to go for help, and a rescue party was summoned as a blizzard blew in.
By the time Kiener returned, she had died of exposure, and subsequently rescuer Herbert Sortland was lost in the storm and would die just a short distance from the Longs Peak Inn.
Woody Smith, archivist for the 10,000-member Colorado Mountain Club and the lead proponent of the proposal, contends that Vaille should be honored with a mountain to symbolize her accomplishments.
“Those other places don’t really point out her climbing,” he said.
So Smith picked the unnamed peak – on a ridge between Mount Antero and Tabeguache Peak – in part because of its proximity to 13,870-foot Cronin Peak, which he had named after Vaille’s frequent climbing partner, Mary Cronin.
“When I first got into this a year ago and wrote my original letter, I thought that would be it, and it would be an easy process,” said Barbara Vaille, a niece from Denver.
The family will be disappointed but not devastated if the effort to name a mountain after her great-aunt fails, Vaille said.
She takes solace in the practice of a cousin who lives in Montana amid many unnamed peaks.
“He and his wife can just give them names as they please,” she said.
Staff writer Steve Lipsher can be reached at 970-513-9495 or slipsher@denverpost.com.
