Ever on and on

What’s a Presidential peak? My niece asked me this question, and it’s an excellent question with a very confusing answer.

A Presidential peak is generally considered to be Mt. Washington, and one of the major peaks on the ridges connected to Washington. North of Washington, these are Madison, Adams, and Jefferson. Mt. Clay sits between Jefferson and Washington; it is not an official 4K peak (for the usual insufficient col reason), nor is it named after a President. There are 5 peaks in the Adams group; the tallest is named after John Adams, the next tallest is John Quincy Adams, then Sam Adams, then imagination failed and the call the smallest bumps Adams 4 and Adams 5. (I and many others think Adams 4 should be called Abigail.) John Quincy Adams, by the way, sits across the col from Mt. Madison and is in fact taller than Madison.

South of Washington the Presidential ridge is Monroe, Little Monroe, Franklin (an even smaller bump on the ridge than Clay), Eisenhower, Pierce/Clinton, Jackson, and Webster. Of these peaks, only half are named after Presidents: Monroe, Eisenhower, and Pierce. (But the Clinton is a former governor of NH, not the President). The Jackson was a state geologist.

There are several other ridges leading to Washington. The Montalban ridge is just east of the Southern Presidentials: its highest peaks are Isolation and Davis, as well as the very recognizable Giant Stairs. The Rocky Branch Ridge, to the east of Montalban, has no major peaks. Then the ridges to the east, which define Washington’s ravines: Boott Spur, Glen Boulder, and Chandler Ridge (where the auto road runs). The peaks on Chandler Ridge, all higher than the Southern Presidentials, are named Ball Crag and Nelson Crag. None of these peaks are considered Presidentials.

Why is this such a mess? Mountain naming is necessarily haphazard (don’t get me started about the peaks named after Native American chiefs who never set foot in New England), and necessarily represents a moment in time. The Presidentials (Adams through Monroe) were named by a group of “prominent citizens”, who climbed Washington (named after George Washington when he was a general and not yet President) and named the next 4 highest peaks after the next 4 Presidents. They got it wrong, by the way, because Monroe – named after the fifth president – is actually the fourth tallest, and Madison is only fifth tallest.

None of this accounts for Lincoln, which is named after President Lincoln, but is not in the Presidential range. (It’s on Franconia Ridge.)

I wrote above that Clay is not named after a President, but that is not entirely true. There has been a national drive to rename features after President Reagan, and Clay is the peak that was targeted in the Whites. The New Hampshire legislature has renamed Clay to Reagan, but the US Bureau of Geological Names, which has its own rules, does not recognize the renaming. So Clay has two names, depending on whether you answer to NH or the US.

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