sierra and owens valley names 2

Sierra & Owens Valley Place Names

[Quang-Tuan Luong photo]

[Quang-Tuan Luong photo]

[Quang-Tuan Luong photo]

[Anthony T. Dunn photo]

Sierra Nevada is Spanish for "snowy mountain range." Sierra is the word for "saw," and when used in this way means a jagged range of mountains - the teeth of the saw being similar to a row of mountain peaks. The Spanish used the name Sierra Nevada with abandon - any time they saw a mountain range with snow on it. As early as 1542, Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo gave that name to what we now know as the "Santa Lucia Range," south of Big Sur. Our present Sierra Nevada received its name from Fray Pedro Font, who saw it from a hill east of the contemporary town of Antioch in April 1776.
"If we looked to the east we saw on the other side of the plain at a distance of some thirty leagues a great Sierra Nevada, white from the summit to the skirts, and running diagonally almost from south-southeast to north-northwest."
[Francis P. Farquhar, History of the Sierra Nevada]

Lt. Davis used the name "Volcano Creek" on his 1896 map, and called the nearby falls "Whitney Falls." On the first edition of the Olancha 30' topographical map in 1907, the USGS named the creek "Golden Trout Creek" and the falls "Volcanic Falls." In 1927 the falls was officially named "Volcano Falls." Volcano Meadows, Volcano Creek, and Volcano Falls all lie in the vicinity of two extinct volcanoes and an enormous expanse of lava. Volcano Falls actually lies on Golden Trout Creek just before the creek flows down the Kern River gorge to meet the Kern River at lower Funston Meadow.

Monache Creek and Monache Meadows are the remnant names of a failed attempt by the citizens of Owens Valley in 1864 to create a new county south of Mono County. They wanted to name the new county, Monache County in honor of the Monachi Indians.
[Walter Chalfant, The Story of Inyo] [photo: unknown]

The USGS named that creek that flows from Big Whitney Meadows south through Groundhog Meadows and Little Whitney Meadows, Golden Trout Creek in 1905. The creek is so named for the proliferation of Golden Trout in the creek. The creek was first called "Whitney Creek" because it source was thought to be near Mt. Whitney (actually Mt. Langley) when Clarence King climbed it (Mt. Langley) in 1871.
[Joseph N. LeConte, A summer of Travel in the High Sierra]

[Golden Trout images below courtesy troutesite.com]

Gilbert Golden Trout

Little Kern Golden Trout

S. Fork Kern Golden Trout

Volcano Creek Golden Trout

Thunderbolt Peak was named by Francis P. Farquhar and six

others when they made the first ascent of the mountain on August 13, 1931. "...shortly after the party reached the summit a violent thunderstorm drove all precipitately to a place of safety. So rapidly did the storm gather that Eichorn, last man to leave the ridge, was dangerously close to a lightning flash that appeared to strike the mountain. The importance of immediate retreat as soon as the rocks begin to 'sing' was strongly impressed upon the members of the party."
[Sierra Club Bulletin, February 1932]
[Scotty Strachan photo]

Palisade Peaks [photo: unknown]

Thunderbolt Peak [photo: unknown]

"Red Kaweah", "Black Kaweah", "Mount Kaweah", "Kaweah Basin", "Kaweah Gap", and "Kaweah Queen" all derive their names after a Yokuts tribe called Kawai, or probably more exactly, Gawia. They lived on or near the "Kaweah River" where it emerges from the foothills into the San Joaquin Valley plains. The river was discovered by the Gabriel Moraga expedition in 1806. Kaweah was originally 'Kah-wah' and some Indians say it means 'I squat here,' or 'Here I rest.' Other Indians say 'Ka' is Indian for crow and 'wia' is Indian for water - getting the name 'crow-water.' 'Ka' came from the sound that a crow makes. There were buzzards and crows by the thousands around the site of Visalia and all the way to the Sierra foothills.

Kaweah Peaks
(Mt. Kaweah, Black Kaweah, Red Kaweah, Kaweah Queen)

Black Kaweah, pointed peak just to right of center.
[Ron Karpel photo]

Black Kaweah (front)
Red Kaweah (back)
[Bill Finch photo]

Olancha Pass and Olancha Peak are said to have derived its name from the Olanches Indians. "Olanche" was formerly an Indian settlement south of Owens Lake. It is thought that the word is a borrowing from a Yokuts tribe west of the Sierra Nevada who called themselves "Yaudanchi," and were called by a neighboring band "Yaulanchi." It is thought that the name "Olanches" originally meant "sleeping beauty." From the summit of Mt. Kaweah the reclining figure of a woman could be seen on the side of Olancha Peak - arms across abdomen, hair flowing back of head, face and breast clearly visible.
[Olancha Peak from Owens Valley, Craig Adkins photo]

Olancha Peak from Monache Meadows
[Mike McDermitt photo]
olancha pass

The Lake of the Lone Indian was named by J. S. and Lincoln Hutchinson and party in 1902. "The name was suggested to us by the very distinct profile of an Indian's face and feathery head-gear in the mountain south of the lake.
[Sierra Club Bulletin, 1903]
[S.E. Thorsett photo]

Dragon Peak was named because its outline as seen from Rae Lakes resembles a dragon. The Dragon Lake was named from the peak.

"Chagoopa Creek" and "Chagoopa Falls" were named by W. B. Wallace, J. W. A. Wright, and F. H. Wales in 1881. "We named the highest of the falls Sha-goo-pah Falls, after an old Pi Ute chief." "Chagoopa Plateau" was named by William R. Dudley and party in July 1897 after the falls which bears the same name.
[Mount Whitney Club Journal, May 1902]
[Sierra Club Bulletin, January 1898]

Pemmican Lake was named in August 1951 by Elden H. Vestal of the California Department of Fish and Game in reference to the travel food of some North American Indians.
[Heyward Moore, Fresno, Past and Present]

Background photograph courtesy of Patitucciphoto.

	Trans-Sierra Highway
	Slim Randles "Night Ride"
	Olancha
	More Sierra Place Names
	More Sierra Place Names
	George Brown, Native American
	To the Top of Mt. Whitney by Rena Moore

Sign Guest Book	The Pigmy Packer		View Guest Book
HOME

This page was last updated on 25 August 2007

Gallats Lakes, Outpost Camp, 60 Lakes basin, Crabtree Meadows, Sierra Nevada, Trail Crest, Olancha Pass, Evolution Valley, Rock Creek, Sky Blue Lake, Acrodeetes Peak, Templeton Meadows, Charybdis, Scylla, Tower Peak, Brown Meadow, Devils Crags, Diamond Mesa, Wright Lakes, Dragon Peak, Funston Lake, Granite Basin, Grouse Meadows, Ionian Basin, Meysan Lake, Lake Helen of Troy, Moraine Lake, Mount Ickes, Painted Lady, Sandy Meadow,