Emmaline Lake and Naming Places for Mothers

The day before we hiked to Emmaline Lake, I told my mom that "Emmaline" was Emma Schupbach Koenig, the mother of one of Rocky Mountain National Park's three first park rangers, Frank Koenig.  To my surprise, my mom sighed.  "They were always naming places after their mothers and their wives just because they were mothers and wives, not because they DID anything memorable."

It was true that I couldn't find anything more about Emma.  Her son evidently added the "-line" suffix to her name just as he added it when he named the remote Hazeline Lake in honor of his wife Hazel Ramsey Koenig (note that Frank named Ramsey Peak after his father-in-law, but did not call it Ramsey-line Peak).  I learned Emma was born in Sardis, Ohio, in 1862, to Swiss-German parents; I learned that she married Rudolph Koenig (twenty years her senior), moved to Colorado, and gave birth to eight children (Frank was the second).  I learned that she died in 1960 and is buried in Loveland.  But these Ancestry.com discoveries led me nowhere close to who Emma Koenig was as a person.  What thoughts and dreams did Emma hold dear?  Did she ever think of the alpine lake her son named for her?  Did she ever walk there?  What was significant to her in her 98 years?  

Emma Schupbach Koenig happened to be the mother of one park ranger who walked in these woods before trails were built here.  But what else?

Then, during the thirteen-mile round-trip hike to Emmaline Lake with my mom and my stepdad Gerry, my thoughts shifted away from Emma Koenig to my own mother, whose name is Mary Miller, and for whom I would eagerly name a lake or a peak, if someone offered me that opportunity.  My mother has accomplished quite a bit in her 65 years:  she shone in a long and successful career as an ELCA Lutheran lay minister and a journalist, she raised two daughters on a farm in eastern Iowa, and she has retired to Colorado to live boldly, traveling local hiking trails and across Europe with Gerry.  But I would name a high-altitude lake for my mother not because of her biography, but because she is like the wildflowers that insist on thriving in rock and wind and storm here.  Once, twenty years ago, when all our lives suddenly became very hard, my mother refused to remain defeated.  She bought a little house of her own and she planted morning glories along the backyard fence.  Every morning, she told me and my sister, those purple blooms reminded her to keep persisting, to keep hoping.  The first Christmas in that little house, she held our hands tightly at the table and reminded us that the circle the three of us made was strong enough.  We believed her.

Gerry crossing the boardwalk of felled trees on the Emmaline Lake trail

At Emmaline Lake this August, my mom and Gerry and I perched on a flat boulder and ate our sandwiches, which Gerry had slathered with the perfect amount of butter, and I hugged my mom close.  "I think it's enough to name a lake for your mother just because you think she's wonderful," I said.  She grinned at me, holding her sandwich in both hands.  The hike had been more difficult than we had anticipated -- 6.5 miles of several shaky stream crossings on rotten logs, mud, two steep climbs up drainages to ledges -- and my mom was tired, but obviously proud she had reached the lake.  

I examined my map.  "It looks like the little lake on the ledge above Emmaline is unnamed.  Should I name it Mary Lake?"  

She shook her head.  "Use my whole name.  I want everyone to know which Mary it was."

Emmaline Lake, with Comanche Peak

In 1915, when Frank Koenig, RMNP park ranger, first reached this alpine lake at the base of the imposing wall of Comanche Peak, he named it for his mother, a widow who now lived on the plains in Weld County with Frank's brother Charles.  Maybe Frank lay on the sun-warmed rock awhile and thought with admiration of his mother's survival, from her birth in the midst of the Civil War to her loss of her mother at age 11, from her decision to leave Ohio and strike west with her husband, Adolph Koenig, to her Swiss-German resilience through eight pregnancies in the rough landscape of pioneer Colorado.  Maybe Frank also thought with awe about his new wife Hazel, herself the intrepid daughter of homesteaders in that wilderness.

I like that Frank understood that, of all people, women like his mother and his wife deserved the honor of their names printed on the maps.  

After our lunch at Emmaline Lake, we headed down, cognizant of the building gray storm clouds.  We talked about parenting, building relationships, finding ourselves.  The older I get, the more I admire my mother and the more I understand she is human, just like I am.  She nurses worries; she wonders if she is good enough.  Realizing this makes me even more certain that there should be a Lake Mary Miller somewhere on the maps.  

My mother, Mary Miller, whose name should also be on the maps

When we were still over two miles from our car, our feet aching and our legs tired, a boom of thunder startled us.  Then another.  We stopped to cover our packs and don our rain jackets, though we only expected a brief drizzle of rain.  Instead, the clouds opened:  hail, cold driving rain, wind, more cannon-shots of thunder.  I wanted to run down the trail, and said as much to my mom, who was hiking with her head down.  A muddy brown river roared down the trail beside us, and the heavy rain nearly obscured the sight of Gerry hiking in front of us.  

"Go ahead.  I'll be fine," she shouted over the thunder and the rain.  

She would have been fine (we were in no real danger from lightning there in the trees), but I slowed my pace.  The point of hiking with her was to be with her.  We trudged through the mud beside each other.

When the sun emerged a half an hour later, the air around us strangely silent, we both breathed again, smiled at each other.  Gerry waited for us on a rock up ahead.  We had weathered storms together before, and the sun did always come out, eventually.

From the shelf just below Cirque Lake, the smaller lake below Emmaline, it is possible to see the entire drainage known as Pinigree Park, where Colorado State University has had a campus since 1910.  In 1972, Hazel Koenig -- Frank's wife and Emma's daughter-in-law -- deeded over most of the remaining Koenig Ranch to the university, and in 2015, the university changed the name of its high-altitude campus from Pinigree Park to Colorado State University Mountain Campus, to distance itself from the logger George Pinigree, who had expressed pride in his role in the Sand Creek Massacre.

How much more honorable to remember people like Emma and Hazel.  How much better for the soul to stand in a meadow of paintbrush, saxifrage, elephant head and bluebells, and to think of women like my mother, who keep sinking roots, searching for strength, even when the world in which they live threatens thunder.

With my mom

How to hike to Emmaline Lake:

1. Drive toward Pinigree Park on CO Road 63E.  At the Tom Bennett Campground, turn right (toward Sky Ranch Lutheran Camp) on CO Road 145.  Park at the intersection with the Cirque Meadow Trail (a 4WD road that some vehicles could travel for another 1/2 mile).  

2.  Hike along the Cirque Meadow Trail west/southwest.  You'll see the CSU Mountain Campus to your left.  Ignore the trails that veer off toward the campus and the ones that veer to the right toward Sky Ranch.  All trails are well-signed.  

3. At the intersection with the Mummy Pass Trail, continue on the Cirque Meadow Trail.  Before the last 1,000-foot climb to Emmaline Lake, you'll cross Fall Creek at a gaging station and then climb west to the lake. Again, the trail is well-signed, and rock cairns will increase your confidence.

4.  You'll climb to the turquoise Cirque Lake and then veer right to Emmaline.  Emmaline Lake is at 11,060 feet -- 2,100 feet higher than the trailhead.  It's worth it (ask my mom)!

Sources:

"Chapter 6: Paradise Founded."  Rocky Mountain National Park:  a History.  Retrieved from https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/romo/buchholtz/chap6.htm.  Web.  8 August 2017.

Dimas, Jennifer.  "Pinigree Park Officially Renamed CSU Mountain Campus."  6 April 2015.  Retrieved from http://source.colostate.edu/pingree-park-officially-renamed-csu-mountain-campus/.  Web.  8 August 2017.

"History of Pinigree Park."  Retrieved from https://www.behance.net/gallery/2038601/Pingree-Park-Historical-Interpretive-Sign-Series.  Web. 8 August 2017.

Schupbach, Emma.  Ancestry.co.uk.  Retrieved from https://www.ancestry.co.uk/genealogy/records/emma-schupbach_124372412?geo_a=r&geo_s=uk&geo_t=uk&geo_v=2.0.0&o_iid=41012&o_lid=41012&o_sch=Web+Property.  Web. 8 August 2017.

"When the Swiss made America."  Swissinfo.ch.  Retrived from https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/when-the-swiss-made-america/6784658.  Web. 8 August 2017.

Photo from findagrave.com.

Lake Isabelle and women who live their lives

What I love about this project is the sleuthing (and the hiking, of course).  I love the question:  Who was ___?  I love the beginning search, the simple typing of a name into Google.  With these women's names, it has not yet been easy or straight-forward, not the way it would be if I were researching for and writing a book about Stephen Long (Long's Peak) or Nathan Meeker (Mount Meeker).  Those men have Wikipedia pages, clear book references, whole histories.  Not so with the women.  The naming convention is part of the problem -- with only a first name, Google has difficulty proceeding.  "Who was Isabelle?"  "Who was Helen?" "Who was Molly?" I have to add geographical details, key words:  "Who was Rosalie, Mount Evans area, Colorado history?"  I have to hope I will crack the mystery.

As my wife, our daughter, and my wife's mother Elaine drove from Evergreen to hike to Lake Isabelle last Friday, I learned that the lake (and the glacier remnant that feeds it) was named by Boulder County engineer Fred A. Fair, to honor his wife. However, though I crouched in the backseat of the car and searched on Google until the curvy roads made me sick, I could find nothing else.  No record of Isabelle Fair.  No indication of where she was from, who she was, or when she died.  I found quite a bit of information about Fred, who had discovered both the Isabelle Glacier and the Fair Glacier in 1908, but none of the sites that detailed his biography mentioned anything about Isabelle.  "It looks like Fred married two other women after Isabelle," I called to the front seat.

A Wikipedia Commons photo, taken by Junius Henderson in 1910, of Isabelle Glacier

My mother-in-law nodded.  "She probably died in childbirth.  Women so often did."

And so, as we set out from the Brainard Lake Trailhead, I started to brainstorm a blog post about women's fragile lives, about medical advances, maybe about child-bearing.  I gazed at Lake Isabelle and wondered if Fred had lingered on its shore and mourned his wife Isabelle.  I know about grief.  I would add some of those thoughts to my blog post.

Meredith and Mitike on the Jean Lunning Trail, on the way up to Lake Isabelle

But I am never content to guess.  When we returned, happy, from our hike through glorious wildflowers to the stunningly beautiful Lake Isabelle, I tried Google again.  Nothing.  It was as if Isabelle Fair had entirely disappeared.

Finally Meredith, who had been watching my frustrated search from the other side of our bed, suggested I try Ancestry.com.  Lately, I've been interested in building my family tree (and Meredith's) on that website, but I hadn't yet thought of it as a research tool for other purposes.  I kissed her and then created a new tree entitled "Isabelle Fair," and began.

Ancestry.com is a little bit magical.  It pulls from birth records, census records, military records, marriage records, and death records to help people build their family trees.  I merely pretended I was Isabelle, added my spouse Fred A. Fair, and waited for the Ancestry.com green leaf, which indicates "hints" about connections to that person.  And the mystery of Isabelle began to unfurl.

The first document Ancestry.com found was a U.S. Census record from Boulder in 1920.  In that year, ten years after University of Colorado Museum of Natural History professor Junius Henderson named Isabelle Glacier and Fair Glacier in Fred Fair's honor, Fred lived with his wife "Isabell" and two roomers, a Leo and Helen Golden.  No children.

Because I loved the romantic vision of Fred mourning on the edge of Lake Isabelle, I thought maybe Isabelle had died just after that.  I found birth records for Fred Adam Fair (1926), John Henry Fair (1927) and Marion Jay Fair (1930), and noted that all three were the children of Fred and a woman named Mary Jane Burger, who died in 1932.  I found a 1932 marriage record to Ruby Goodwin.

And then I found a death record of a Leo Francis Golden, who was born on April 27, 1921.  I assumed his parents were Helen and Leo Golden, the roomers who lived with the Fairs -- until I learned (more Census records) that Helen was Leo's sister.

Finally, a 1930 Census record solved the mystery.  In 1930, 8-year-old Leo lived with his parents in Los Angeles, California.  His parents were Leo Elbert Golden, age 46, and Isabel Golden, age 46.

Sometime between the 1920 Census and the 1930 Census, Isabel (Isabelle?  Isabell?) had divorced Fred, given birth to Leo F., married Leo E., and moved to California (it's not clear what order she did all of that, as I can't find her marriage record to Leo or her divorce record from Fred).

She did not die.  In fact, she lived a long life in California, maybe happily, until the age of 83.  Her son Leo Francis lived until the age of 92, dying in Sitka, Alaska, in 2014 (interestingly, I worked in Sitka in 2001 and visited often after that, and may have crossed paths at some point with Leo).

The family tree Ancestry.com built for Isabel (Frances Isabel Womack)

The story of the Isabelle of Lake Isabelle and Isabelle Glacier is not one of death in childbirth, but one of a woman who married young (in Missouri, at age 20), moved to Colorado with her engineer husband, and fell in love with another man.  It's the story of a woman who lived her life bravely, though her world must have frowned upon her boldness.

Fred may have brooded on the edge of Lake Isabelle, but out of anger or despair at his wife's departure, not at her death.  Did they have children together?  I can't find any evidence that they did, though they were married 18 years.  That might explain Isabel's attraction to the new engineer, Leo.

What I do know: Professor Junius Henderson did not know how to spell "Isabel" when he marked the name on a lake and a glacier.

What I also know:  I want to be a woman who lives my life as fully as I can, like I think Isabel did.

Four women working to live their lives as bravely and boldly as possible.

How to hike to Lake Isabelle and Isabelle Glacier:

1.  Drive to the Brainard Lake Recreation Area, which requires a National Parks pass or the $11 day-use fee to enter.  Note:  even on a week-day in the summer, visitors who arrive later than 9 am will need to park in the day-use lot at Brainard Lake instead of at the Long Lake or Niwot Trailheads, which adds an extra mile round-trip to the hike.

2.  Hike either the Niwot Cut-off Trail from the Niwot parking area or the Long Lake Trail from the Long Lake Trailhead.  At the southern edge of Long Lake, you have a choice to hike the trail on the east shore or the Jean Lunning trail on the west shore -- in July, the flowers and the views on the Jean Lunning trail are magnificent.

3.  At the end of Long Lake, take the Pawnee Pass Trail to Lake Isabelle.  The trail zigzags steeply up to a shelf just before the lake, but the climb is well-worthwhile.  People who want the expansive views hike all the way up to Pawnee Pass.

4.  From the lake, the trail continues up to the remnant of Isabelle Glacier.

The trail along Lake Isabelle toward the glacier.

Sources:

Cockerell, T.D.A.  "Junius Henderson." The Nautilus.  51 (3):  97-99.  Retrieved from https://archive.org/stream/nautilus51amer#page/96/mode/2up.  Web.  24 July 2017.

"Fair Family."  Rootsweb.ancestry.com.  22 January 2016.  Retrieved from http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=press&id=I613.  24 July 2017.  Web.

"Glaciers of Colorado."  Portland State University, 2009.  Retrieved from http://glaciers.research.pdx.edu/Glaciers-Colorado.  24 July 2017.  Web.

"Isabel Frances Womack Golden."  Findagrave.com.  Retrieved from https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi/page/gr/%3Cbr%3E..http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=177467606.  24 July 2017.  Web.

"Leo F. Golden."  www.tributes.com.  Retrieved from http://www.tributes.com/obituary/show/Leo-F.-Golden-99393224.  24 July 2017.  Web.

"Womack, Frances Isabel." Ancestry.com.  22 July 2017.  Web.

Bluebells and Lake Isabelle (July 2017)

Lady Moon, and being "good enough"

My sister Katie and I are women who worry, constantly, about how to be good enough.  At 37 and 40, we are both women with graduate degrees, lovely Colorado houses, children, and loving spouses -- and yet we both become easily consumed by anxiety that we are not good enough wives, good enough mothers, good enough friends, good enough daughters, good enough artists, good enough people.  Our worry weighs on us, threatening us, unbalancing us.

We talked about this as we hiked the Lady Moon Trail near Red Feather Lakes last week.  What has made us this way, when other people evidently waltz through their lives with very little worry at all?  Why do we feel so responsible for everything and everyone?  Was it our upbringing on an Iowa farm, in a culture that praised children primarily for their contributions and hard work?  Was it the model of our mother and our aunts, our grandmothers and our great-grandmothers, who hurried to please and do and fix?  Or did we simply inherit a chemical propensity to be anxious?

And how can we teach our daughters, Elida and Mitike, to relax into who they are, to live fully in the moment, to take responsibility for only what is theirs?  Even more importantly, how can we unlearn all this worry and model more confidence for them?

The Lady Moon Trail to Molly Lake (July 20, 2017)

We talked about Chimamanda Adichie's 2016 book, Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions, in which Adichie advises women to teach their daughters to be kind, not "nice."  We talked about a parenting book Katie had just read that warns against only praising children for what makes the adults proud, lest they learn that they are only loved when they please us.  We talked about our childhood on that farm in eastern Iowa, which always felt idyllic, with its barefoot summers in the long cool grass, and which maybe was.  We talked about Elida and Mitike, about what we love about the strong little women they are becoming, and about how we worry about them.

Meanwhile, the Lady Moon Trail wound its way through stands of aspens on an old road overgrown with yellow Golden Banner, blue Harebell, and deep pink Horsemint.  And the longer we walked, the better it was to just hike together in the sunshine, to photograph some Wyoming Paintbrush, to strike silly poses with a moose antler, to watch the clouds build over the Mummy Range.

The Lady Moon Trail winds through purple Horsemint here (July 2017).

By the time we reached Molly Lake (a lake named for a Molly I cannot find in any histories of the area), we had laughed quite a bit, too, and that tension we each hold too much of our lives had eased.  We agreed that we can (and do) teach Elida and Mitike this.  Get outside yourself, literally.  Walk for miles with a beloved person who knows you well.  It becomes easier and easier to just be, to forget the anxiety about what we should do.

My sister Katie being wonderfully silly with a moose antler (July 2017)

*

Unfortunately, that awareness (for me, and I think for Katie) only lasts a moment.  As I drove south back to Denver, I fell quickly into ticking through all the "shoulds":  I should get groceries, I should take Mitike to more museums, I should be a better communicator with my far-flung friends, I should start planning my lessons for the next school year, I should work more on that novel, I should be a better house cleaner, I should. . . The "shoulds" overwhelm.  They threaten to choke me.

Then I started to think about Lady Moon, for whom the trail Katie and I hiked (and the inaccessible private lake that trail parallels) was named.

Catherine Gratton Lawder Moon did not worry, ever, about being good enough.

When, orphaned after her Irish parents' deaths in St. Louis, she worked for a physician as a servant, she did not try to speak properly, but earned the nickname "Cussing Kate."

When she turned 18 in 1883 and struck out for the West, finding work as a laundress, maid and waitress at Norman's Elkhorn Lodge in Larimer County, Colorado, she did not try to preserve a reputation, but earned money from male visitors in whatever ways she could.

When Cecil Moon, a son of an English baron, fell sick and needed nursing on the ranch she and her new husband, Frank Garman, ran, she did not worry about what was morally right or socially permissible.  She fell in love with Cecil, divorced Frank, and became "Lady" Moon.

When Cecil pleaded with her to don dresses, speak quietly, and behave demurely at his family's estate in England when they visited in 1889, she refused.  She wore her cowgirl clothes, rode Western style on her horse Moses (whom she had brought to England on the ship from America), and flouted her Irishness in Cecil's parents' faces.

When the Larimer County authorities accused Catherine of burning down her own house on the Moon ranch above the Elkhorn to collect the insurance money, she shrugged, continuing to ride into Fort Collins clad in the fine clothes, furs, and jewelry she had supposedly lost to the fire.

Catherine Grattan Lawder "Cussing Kate" Moon

In 1909, when Cecil filed for divorce so he could claim his title and wealth from his family, who refused to accept Catherine, Lady Moon did not fall to his feet weeping; she did not beg him to stay.  She laughed in his face, because he had signed over all of his properties and wealth to her on his many drunken nights.  She became the first woman west of the Mississippi to pay a man alimony.

When the U.S. government outlawed alcohol in the Prohibition Act of 1920, Catherine brazenly distilled her own bootleg whiskey on her ranch, which she and her men then sold in Fort Collins.  She sewed a special lining into her bloomers to hide her stash.  One night at a party on her ranch, she fell down drunk and glass bottles of whiskey clattered out.  She was arrested, but then acquitted because no authority was willing to search her bloomers.

She ran her ranch like a man.  She held raucous parties; she kept over twenty dogs at a time; she swore and caroused with her ranch hands and various boyfriends.

Harebell and Golden Banner on the old Lady Moon Ranch.

Again and again, the cattle ranchers in Red Feather Lakes and Livermore pleaded with Lady Moon to close and chain the cattle gates after she rode her horse, Lady West, through them, but she shrugged off their pleas.  It took the ranchers weeks to separate their own cattle from the mixed-up herds.  (In stark contrast, my sister and I dutifully re-latched each of the three cattle gates through which we passed on our hike.)

Two women who always latch cattle gates.

In 1925, at age 61, she did not even die politely.  Some say she died of uterine cancer; some say she died of alcohol poisoning, and some say she was the woman found murdered in the Livermore Hotel, maybe by her own bootleggers.  It's true that her will revealed a good heart:  she left the bulk of her remaining money ($500) to the St. Vincent's Orphanage in Denver.  But she lived hard, and always against what society thought she should be.

Lady Moon's gravestone in Fort Collins, CO

Her refusal to obey convention -- to obey anyone, actually -- made Lady Moon famous.  Her life inspired a Broadway play, Sunday; the radio soap opera, Our Gal Sunday; a one-act play, Lady Moon; a novel, The Lady from Colorado; and an opera, The Lady from Colorado (revised as Lady Katie).

Wow.

But. . .do my sister Katie and I want our daughters to be like that?  NO.

Do we want Elida and Mitike -- and ourselves -- to gain a little more of that I-could-care-less fire?  Yes.  I'm certain Lady Moon never lay down in her bed at her ranch worrying about whether she had done enough that day, or whether she had offended anyone.  She did not care.  She believed, deeply, that she was good enough exactly as she was.

And maybe that's why I want to research all these women Colorado has honored on the maps.  I want to learn other ways to be a woman.  I want to whisper those ways into Mitike's and Elida's ears; I want to tell those stories to myself and to my sister.  I want us all to know that sometimes, it might be important to hide whiskey pints in our bloomers and swear with the men.

And sometimes, it might be okay to leave the cattle gate unlatched.  Maybe.

*

A Red Dome Blanket Flower in the aspens on the Lady Moon Trail (July 2017)

How to hike the Lady Moon Trail to Molly Lake

1. Drive to the Lady Moon Trailhead, just south of Highway 74E (across the road from the Mount Margaret trailhead).  Note:  Lady Moon Lake is on private property, so it is not possible to hike there (thus the hike to Molly Lake -- I've emailed the Red Feather Historical Society hoping they can give me insight into who Molly was).  I DO appreciate that, like Lady Moon herself, Lady Moon Lake defies societal rules, but it's not worth the fine/trouble of striking out across private ranch land to get there.

2.  Hike about 1.1 miles from the trailhead to the junction with the Granite Ridge Trail, and turn right toward Manhatten Road (it's clearly marked with a sign).  In July, the wildflowers on this route were stunning.  Note the Horsemint, the Mariposa Lily, the Golden Banner, and the several varieties of paintbrush.

3.  Hike for 2.7 miles (through two cattle gates) to a clearly marked junction with the Molly Lake trail.  A very short trail leads to the placid Molly Lake, which is surrounded by lovely smooth stones perfect for lunch spots.  We saw quite a bit of evidence of moose -- scat, an abandoned antler, and hoof prints in the mud -- but we never saw the moose himself.  

4. Return the way you came, or get someone to pick you up at the Molly Lake Trailhead, just under a mile from Molly Lake.  No matter what, enjoy the solitude.  In our 7.6-mile hike, Katie and I saw only three people (all at Molly Lake).

Who was Molly?  I haven't figured that out yet, but Molly Lake is a peaceful place (July 2017).

*

Sources:
"Catherine Lawder -- Fort Collins' 'Lady' Moon."  Fort Collins Historical Society.  Retrieved from https://sites.google.com/site/fchistoricalsociety/ladymoon.  22 July 2017.  Web.

Fleming, Barbara.  "Lady Moon left riches-to-rags story in Fort Collins."  19 September 2015.  The Coloradoan.  Retrieved from http://www.coloradoan.com/story/news/2015/09/20/lady-moon-left-riches-rags-story-fort-collins/72418632/.  22 July 2017.  Web.

"Lady Moon."  Retrieved from http://operapronto.info/mementos/exh_moon/exh_moon.html.  22 July 2017.  Web.

"Lady Moon Ranch Tour."  Retrieved from http://redfeatherhistoricalsociety.org/tours-events/historical-site-tours/lady-moon-ranch-tour/.  22 July 2017.  Web.

Livermore Woman's Club History Committee.  Among These Hills:  a History of Livermore, Colorado.  Double DJ Enterprises, 1995.  Print.

Looney, Robert C.  "The Story of Fox Acres."  October 1978.  Retrieved from http://www.foxacrescommunity.com/picture/looneyfoxacres_part1.pdf.  22 July 2017.  Web.

"West of Lady Moon."  Groundspeak, Inc.  Retrieved from https://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC4CJJ6_west-of-lady-moon?guid=029898d3-ec5c-4628-850f-3a73bb3fb3b4 .  22 July 2017.  Web.

"Wrangler Trail Stories." Retrieved from http://www.sundancetrail.com/staff/dude-ranch-jobs-staff-orientation-articles/wrangler-trail-stories/.  22 July 2017.  Web.

Update on re-naming Squaw Mountain

After readers of this blog submitted their "votes" for the re-naming of Squaw Mountain, I decided Mistanta/Owl Woman had the most support, since she is a notable Native American woman who worked to bridge differences in one of Colorado's first and most important trading forts (before the era of expulsion and massacre).  I have just submitted a proposal to the US Board on Geographic Names to change Squaw Mountain in Clear Creek County (I guess I'll work on Routt County's Squaw Mountain and Teller County's Squaw Mountain later) to Mount Mistanta.  Wish the proposal luck!

On Squaw Mountain -- and renaming it

Although it is not named for a specific woman, I have to discuss Squaw Mountain, which is an 11,773-foot mountain near Idaho Springs, and which I love for its surprisingly astounding view and for the little fire lookout tower on its summit.  I love it, but its name twists my heart every time I hear it.

Squaw Mountain is the perfect triangle on the left -- viewed from my mother-in-law's house in Evergreen, CO.

The origin and the appropriateness of the word "squaw," according to an article from Indian Country Today, has been much debated.  Some historians (including Dr. Marge Bruchac, an Abenaki historical consultant) argue that, in the Algonquin languages, the word merely means "woman" or "wife".  However, others have argued that the English word came from a French corruption of the Mohawk (or Iroquois) term for "vagina," which gives sexual meaning to the word. Suzan Shown Harjo, a Cheyenne and Hodulgee Muscogee American Indian rights activist insisted on the Oprah Winfrey Show in 1992 that squaw was certainly an Algonquin word meaning vagina, that it was the equivalent of the "s-word," and that continuing to use it only reinforced a shameful cultural heritage of sexual abuse of Native American women (a reality that continues in today's America, where 1 in 3 Native American women will be raped in their lifetimes).  Harjo's adamant stance inspired many campaigns to rename places in the U.S. that had been named "squaw."  In fact, in the first four months of 2008, the U.S. Board on Geographic Names omitted the name "squaw" from sixteen valleys, creeks, and other sites.  Most notably, the USBGN renamed Arizona's 2,612-foot Squaw Peak Piestewa Peak, to honor Lori Piestewa, a Hopi/Hispanic soldier from Arizona who was killed in Iraq in 2003.

And yet, Colorado still has a Squaw Mountain in Clear Creek County.  Worse:  Colorado has a Squaw Pass in Clear Creek County, a Squaw Pass in Hinsdale County, a Squaw Creek, a Squaw Gulch, a Squaw Point, a Squaw Canyon, and two other Squaw Mountains (one in Routt County and one in Teller County).

If Harjo and others are correct, we have Slut Mountain, Slut Pass, Slut Creek, Slut Gulch, Slut Canyon.  The ugliness of the word -- of its import -- becomes clear.

If Harjo and others are correct, we have places named not to honor the Ute, Cheyenne and Arapaho women who walked in these woods and camped in these meadows and canyons, but places named to "honor" the dishonorable and violent ways in which those women were regarded and used.

If Harjo and others are correct, we have places named to commemorate massacres like Sand Creek, in which over 400 women, children, elders and disabled Cheyenne and Arapaho people were raped, murdered, and mutilated.

If Harjo and others are correct -- and I believe they are -- we must rename all the places that still retain "squaw."  We must choose names that allow us to tell our children honorable, not horrific, stories.

My wife's cousin Amber asked in a comment on my last post how we can convince the powers that be to rename the places we love, to honor the good and not the shameful.  I did some research on this, and I found an answer in number 6 on the the FAQs on the U.S. Board on Geographic Names site.  The proposed change of name must be for a "compelling reason," and the name must be for someone who has been dead at least five years.  A "compelling reason" includes changing a "derogatory name".  I do not think I will have much luck proposing a change to Mt. Evans' name, but I do think I could successfully propose a change to Clear Creek County's Squaw Mountain.  What name should I propose?  Please vote in the comments section, and explain why you think that name should be the one I propose to the USBGN (note:  I did not mention the Ute Chipeta here, since she already has Mount Chipeta named for her -- more on that someday).

1.  Mochi (1840-1881), the 24-year-old Southern Cheyenne survivor of the Sand Creek Massacre who became a warrior to avenge her people (see my post on Mount Rosalie).  She participated in several raids -- the most notorious of which was the attack on the German family on a stagecoach route in Kansas.  Shortly after, Mochi, her husband Medicine Water, and 33 others were caught and incarcerated as prisoners of war of the U.S. (Mochi is the only Native American woman to ever be held as a POW in the U.S.).
2.  Mistanta (Owl Woman) (1800-1847), the wife of William Bent, who ran Bent's Fort in eastern Colorado.  Owl Woman was a Southern Cheyenne leader who helped negotiate trade between the many groups who traded at Bent's Fort, and helped maintain good relations between the white people and the Native people.  As the eldest daughter of the powerful Cheyenne leader White Thunder, Mistanta worked as a translator and important bridge between the indigenous tribes and the newcomers, in an era before the military-ordered massacres and removals.
3.  Helen White Peterson (1915-2000), who was part Cheyenne and part Lakota Sioux, and who moved from Denver to Washington, D.C., in 1953 to become the first Native American woman director of the National Congress of American Indians, and later returned to Colorado to start an ethnic studies program at Colorado College.
4.  Dr. Susette "Bright Eyes" La Flesche (1854-1903), who was of the Omaha tribe (the daughter of an Omaha chief), attended a Historically Black College (Hampton), earned her medical degree, and returned to practice medicine on the reservation, working to improve the situation of Native Americans.  Again, no direction connection to Colorado, but a Native American woman to be honored.
5.  Sarah Winnemuca (c. 1844-1891), a Northern Paiute activist and writer, who traveled across the United States (certainly through Colorado, and definitely to D.C.) speaking about the rights of Native Americans.

A watercolor/sketch of Mistanta/Owl Woman done at Bent's Fort by Lt. James Abert in 1845.  Squaw Mountain could easily be re-named Mount Mistanta or Mount Owl Woman, to better honor a specific Colorado Native American woman.

We can better name the lovely pyramid between Evergreen and Idaho Springs.  It's true that a re-naming will also require a re-naming of the pass, of the fire lookout, and of the road -- and maybe of the neighboring Chief Mountain -- but a beginning seems important.  Which Native American woman should we honor?

The sign near the top of Squaw Mountain, May 2016 (note the fire lookout at the summit, just barely visible in the fog)

*

How (and why) to hike this mountain (4.1 miles RT):
1.  Drive on Squaw Pass Road (also called Highway 103) west from Evergreen (or east from Echo Lake) to a clearly signed place to the south of the road.  4WD vehicles can drive up another 0.7 miles to a gate, but only in the summer.  In the winter after a heavy snow, the road/trail is barely passable for people wearing snowshoes.

2.  Hike past the gate up the wide road, following clear signs to Squaw Mountain.  Toward the top (about two miles from the parking area on the road), the trail/road begins to zigzag up to the fire lookout tower, which is available to rent overnight -- click HERE for the reservation site.  It's very popular; reserve months in advance.

3.  The summit of Squaw Mountain affords lovely views of Mount Evans and Rosalie and of Pikes Peak to the south.  It's a beautiful place to sit for awhile -- even better, it's a perfect place to spend the night.  Although my wife and I saw only snow and fog from the 360-degree windows in the fire lookout, we loved the silence of the deep snow (and noted that many others had written about a howling, threatening wind in the cabin log).

4.  How much better would it be if we could say we had spent the night in the fire lookout on the summit of Mount Mochi, or Mount Mistanta, or Helen White Peterson Peak?  Remember to "vote" for your favorite re-naming option of Squaw Mountain -- just leave a comment.

My wife on snowshoes in front of the fire lookout on Squaw Mountain (May 2016)

Our "view" from the fire lookout, May 2016

Mount Rosalie and Rosalie Bierstadt

I love to look at Mount Rosalie.  From my sister-in-law's deck in Pine, Colorado, it's a pleasingly rounded summit, a dome blanketed in snow until late in the summer.  Beside its 13,575-foot gentle rise, Mount Evans and Mount Bierstadt, both 14ers, appear harsh, craggy, forbidding.  And yet Rosalie is deceptive.  It is easy to summit Mount Rosalie from the Mount Evans road -- merely drive up the zigzagging road to just above Summit Lake, park, and hike south up and over Epaulet Mountain and then to Rosalie.  But I'm not sure this counts as "climbing" Rosalie any more than parking at the lot on Evans and walking the final half mile to its summit counts as climbing that 14er.

The dome of Mount Rosalie from the Hwy 285 junction in Pine, CO

To climb Mount Rosalie, and say you've really done it, you must begin at the bottom -- and you must know the history of the person for whom the mountain is named -- and the controversy that surrounds it still.

Who was Rosalie?

In 1863, when the painter Albert Bierstadt climbed the mountains known today as Evans and Bierstadt, Rosalie was not yet his wife.  In fact, Rosalie was the wife of Bierstadt's friend, the American author and journalist Fitz Hugh Ludlow, whom Bierstadt had invited to accompany him on the trip west.  Bierstadt did not even know Rosalie except from Ludlow's detailed descriptions.  However, in just three years -- after mutual accusations of infidelity -- Rosalie and Ludlow would divorce and she would marry Bierstadt.  Bierstadt's brazen honoring of her on the maps three years before, in the company of her husband, might lead us to wonder if their romance had already begun, at least in his artist's mind.

For me, this dramatic scandal helps interpret Bierstadt's "A Storm in the Rocky Mountains, Mt. Rosalie," which he painted from sketches he did on that 1863 hike.  I've always been a bit perplexed by Bierstadt's paintings, because, though I appreciate the light and grandeur and the clouds in them, they never represent the Rockies as they actually look, depicting them as far more jagged, more Eden-like.  But if this painting is meant to convey Bierstadt's tumultuous love for his friend's wife, then it makes more sense.

"A Storm in the Rocky Mountains, Mt. Rosalie," 1866, Albert Bierstadt (Brooklyn Museum -- https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/objects/1558/)

Rosalie was lovely, people said.  Rosalie was a flirt, people said.  Rosalie was popular and rich, people said.  That she divorced a prominent journalist and art critic for a prominent painter seemed to only increase her celebrity status.  In England, she and Albert met Queen Victoria; in Canada, they were the honored guests of a costume ball; in their winter home in Nassau and in their homes on the Hudson and in New York, they were regarded as American royalty.

Rosalie Osborn Bierstadt

However, Rosalie was not a strong woman.  Diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1876, she became increasingly frail and died in Nassau in 1893, at the age of 52.  Her husband Albert Bierstadt would live only another nine years, to die at age 73.


Why is the mountain named Rosalie?

Rosalie the woman was nothing like the gentle dome that is currently named for her.  This is particularly interesting when one realizes that the original Mount Rosalie -- in fact, the Mount Rosalie in Bierstadt's 1866 painting -- was what we call Mount Evans today.  It's true:  for three decades, Colorado had a 14er named after a woman.  However, in 1895, the Colorado legislature changed the name of that peak to Evans to honor John Evans, who had been governor of Colorado from 1862-1865 and who had collaborated with the U.S. military's Colonel John Chivington to carry out the horrific November 29, 1864, Sand Creek Massacre against the Cheyenne and Arapaho.  Too many places honor this despicable man on maps:  Evanston, Illinois; Evanston, Wyoming; Evans, Colorado; Mount Evans (and Colorado's highest peak, Mount Elbert, honors Evans' son-in-law).

In 1865, the Colorado legislature assured everyone that Rosalie Bierstadt would still be honored:  the unnamed 13er near Bierstadt and Evans would be named Mount Rosalie.  However, a campaign continues to restore Rosalie's name to its original peak, to honor an artist's wife and not an architect of genocide.

I thought about all of this as I climbed the five miles from Deer Creek Campground to the summit of Rosalie last summer.  From the saddle between Rosalie and Pegmatite Points, as I trudged west up Rosalie's sloping tundra side, I watched Mount Evans, the cars flashing on the road that winds up its side, and I thought about how shameful it is to give a beautiful mountain the name of a murderer. Privately, I re-named the peak known as Mount Evans Mount Mochi, after the 24-year-old Southern Cheyenne woman who became an avenging warrior after she survived the Sand Creek Massacre Evans had ordered.  We should honor people like Mochi with our mountains' names.

Mochi, a Southern Cheyenne woman warrior, for whom Mt. Evans SHOULD be named

In fact, I think we would do far better to honor women like Mochi than women like Rosalie Bierstadt, whose fame stemmed from the wealth into which she was born and the men she happened to marry, not anything she accomplished or endured.


How to climb the mountain currently named Mount Rosalie:
1. Drive 4.4 miles southwest of Pine Junction on US-285 (toward Bailey), and take a right at the gas station.  This is Deer Creek Road.  Drive 8.3 miles (note the lovely views of Rosalie as you drive) past the Deer Creek Campground and park at the road's end (and note, with the bafflement that I felt) that some people pitch their tents in gravel parking lots when there are ample beautiful sites in the woods along the creek.  Start hiking on the Tanglewood Trail.

2.  After about a mile, you'll reach the junction with the Rosalie Trail.  It feels counterintuitive, but stay on the Tanglewood Trail (the righthand fork).

3.  The trail switchbacks up through a lovely meadow and forest, and then through bristlecone pines to the tundra.  About 3.25 miles from the trailhead, you reach the broad saddle between Rosalie and Pegmatite Points.  The view here is lovely (I shared it with a pair of curious young deer with velvety antlers), and the Tanglewood Trail ambles invitingly onward into the Evans Wilderness.  However, to hike Rosalie, leave the trail and hike west (to your left) toward Rosalie's summit.

Looking back down the east ridge of Mount Rosalie (August 2016)

4.  The dome look of Rosalie translates to many false summits.  Enjoy the views and the soft tundra, and examine the flowers as you catch your breath.  The summit is up there.

An alpine succulent in Rosalie's tundra slope

5.  From the top of Rosalie, the view is stunning, and the flat rocks are a perfect place to recline awhile in the silence and the solitude.  In the hours I hiked Rosalie, I met only two other hikers.  Compare that to the hundreds of hikers on Bierstadt and Evans each day.

From the summit of Mount Rosalie (August 2016)

Sources:

"At home in the huddle:  Watertown, New York."  Retrieved from http://athomeinthehuddle2013.blogspot.com/2013/03/its-garbage-day.html.  Web. 13 July 2017.

Enss, Chris.  Mochi's War.  TwoDot, 2015.

"Mount Evans."  Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Evans.  Web.  13 July 2017.

O'Neill, Tam.  "Albert Bierstadt, Great Art, True Love!" Retrieved from http://www.tamoneillfinearts.com/albert-bierstadt-mt-rosalie/.  Web.  13 July 2017.