Grace Peak, and the Naming of Mountains

On June 12 this past summer, the US Board of Geographic Names accepted a long-standing petition to rename East Dix as Grace Peak. East Dix and South Dix, two of the 46 Peaks over 4,000 feet in the Adirondacks, were named for their proximity to Dix Mountain, the 5th largest peak in New York. Schneider wrote about Ebenezer Emmons and his historic ascent up Mount Marcy--the first recorded ascent of the tallest mountain in the state. Emmons named Marcy's neighbor Dix Mountain after the Secretary of State, John Dix, who had been one of the strongest supporters of the geographic survey to the high peaks region.

http://alloveralbany.com/archive/2014/06/17/grace-peak

I hiked up East Dix this summer about a week before it was renamed, and I remember sitting at the summit and thinking that it was one of the most spectacular views I had ever seen from an Adirondack peak. I had a brief thought that it deserved a name of its own rather than sharing a name with a neighboring mountain, but it didn't stick with me until I read about the renaming. Grace Hudowalski  was the first woman to summit all 46 of the high peaks and was "a mentor to thousands of people as she shared her enthusiasm for the Adirondacks with everyone". Today, Grace Peak and Esther are the only two high peaks named after women.

When I read Schneider's passages about the naming of the Adirondack park, and the naming of peaks within it, it seems pretty arbitrary how massive geologic features can be labeled by whomever got there first. One man got to the top of Marcy before anyone else did, so he had the ability to give a name to every other mountain he could see. In Emmons' case he gave titles to people who helped him get to Marcy, which is a very admirable way to name the peaks. He did not even name one after himself--someone else did that later. However, despite his good intentions, I wish that more of the mountains were named after something other than 19th century government and corporate officials, even though they have been around for millions of years. There are definitely exceptions to that trend--Skylight and Gothics are named for their physical features, Algonquin and Iroquois are named after Native American groups, and I think that Grace Peak is also an exception in the sense that Grace was a role model and an Adirondack local rather than a landowner from far outside of the park.

View from summit of Grace, taken by John Pikus

Source: http://adk46er.org/news.html