selgaran said:
...and there are far too many "Bald Mountains" in CA.
I've lived and worked in four states and besides California there are a ton of Bald Mountains in Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico. How about Black Mountain, Blue Mountain, Red Peak, Lost Peak, Lone Peak, Crystal Peak and Twin Peaks? Then there are all the lakes and canyons named just like these peaks. When in Colorado everything seems to be named "Columbine" or "Elk." It also seems like every single state has a mountain range called the "White Mountains." Then there is the hugely popular and widespread name of "Indian." "Sawtooth" would seem to be something confined to the highest mountains of the west, however, I have found the term used to name features in the midwest and the south as well, where their mountains, although extemely beautiful due to the mass of vegetation covering them, would really be considered mole hills if they were transported west.
In Arizona and New Mexico there are thousands of places named "Cow" something or other. Another popular name besides cow was "Dog." Dog Canyon, Dog Meadow, Dog Lake, Dog Springs, Dog Prarie, and Dogtown, are all places I've visited in more than one state. Things named "Bear" are all over the map, so to speak. Fish is another very popular name. Ironically many locations in the driest parts of the southwest are called "Water" such as Water Canyon, Water Peak, and the ever popular and creative "Water Spring", which seems to be a bit redundant.
It was amusing when I was living in Arizona in the seventies the new 7.5 minute USGS quadrangles were being published, replacing the old 15 minute series. The area had a lot of topographic features which someone felt needed some slight name changes. Back in the 19th century when men would travel by foot, horseback, or wagon searching for riches in one form or another they were without women for long periods of time. They tended to look at landforms and imagine the various parts of a woman's anatomy. Thus there were buttes with names like "Molly's Nipple" and such. Most of these were in remote areas that were not rich in distinctive features and maps for these areas were not all that popular. As the 15 minute maps were being split up into four 7.5 minute maps such features as "Molly's Nipple" became "MN Butte." It is amazing when you travel and put yourself in what must have been these pioneers mindset how many things remind you of what they were seeing.
Sometimes I will be using the program "Topo USA" and search for a named feature and forget to put the state in when setting up the search. It is amazing to find features you thought were confined to one region, named the same thing all over the country.
