Caltopo Peak Names

[wineguy]

I was tagging some bicents in the San Juans this past week, and noticed that Caltopo has some peak names I hadn't noticed before. UN13801 is labeled Handies - ESE Peak, UN13838 is labeled Redcloud Peak - Northeast Peak, and UN13820 is labeled Redcloud Peak - Far Northeast Peak. This site, LOJ, and the Cooneys still have these peaks labeled as UN138xx. Are these new names unique to Caltopo, or has someone else given these peaks names?

[justiner]

According to Caltopo, they get peak names from Peakbagger, is that tracking with you?

[Eli Boardman]

Caltopo gets them from Peakbagger, and Peakbagger gets them from "I made it up."

Annoyingly, Peakbagger recently added a bunch of automatically "discovered" peaks from lidar, many of which have well established names in guidebooks, but now these show up on Peakbagger (and hence Caltopo) with boring elevation names.

Recent example I encountered:
Correct unofficial name from guidebooks in LoJ: https://listsofjohn.com/peak/6942
Auto-magically generated elevation "name" in Peakbagger: https://peakbagger.com/peak.aspx?pid=30032
Peakbagger elevation "name" showing up in Caltopo: https://caltopo.com/map.html#ll=44.4080 ... z=15&b=mbt

[GUTstring]

Annoyingly, Peakbagger recently added a bunch of automatically "discovered" peaks from lidar, many of which have well established names in guidebooks, but now these show up on Peakbagger (and hence Caltopo) with boring elevation names.

The site administrator is pretty good about correcting errors if you email him. I'd encourage you to do so if you know of more peaks like this to help make their database cleaner!

[gb]

Hmmn, never noticed before but you're right. Looking around my local area there is a little hump I've never seen named with a name on Caltopo, "WCU peak" has been on TI maps for 20+ years but it isn't called anything, and Mt Raoul (sometimes called Castleabra) is called Castle Peak- West Peak.

I wouldn't say it matters at all except for the fact that SAR teams rely on Caltopo, and that's not a place for any confusion.

[Scott P]

For better or worse, 14ers.com members may have had a play in this (or so it seems).

Several years ago there was a thread on 14ers.com (I tried to find it, but was unsuccessful) where people expressed there disapproval with Google Maps and Caltopo using listsofjohn names for un-named peaks on their maps. A bunch of 14ers.com members wrote to them and complained. I did notice that after that happened, peakbagger names started showing up instead. I can't say for sure that that was the reason, but I have always thought that it played a part.

[seano]

Several years ago there was a thread on 14ers.com (I tried to find it, but was unsuccessful) where people expressed there disapproval with Google Maps and Caltopo using listsofjohn names for un-named peaks on their maps. A bunch of 14ers.com members wrote to them and complained. I did notice that after that happened, peakbagger names started showing up instead.

I'm surprised CalTopo was using LoJ at all. It's a worldwide mapping app, and LoJ is US-only, while Peakbagger is global. I would personally prefer that CalTopo only show official names, via the BGN in the US, and its equivalent elsewhere, but I normally use the USGS topo layer in the US, so it doesn't affect me much.

[Scott P]

I'm surprised CalTopo was using LoJ at all. It's a worldwide mapping app

This is only recently though. Caltopo used to be just for the US. I'm not sure if they just pulled the names off Google Maps though (which originally got them from LoJ) rather than LoJ directly.

Of note, I just checked Google maps and all the unofficial names I checked on now gone. I'm not sure when that happened.

Also of note, Peakbagger got a lot of the unofficial names off Summitpost.

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I guess I'm responsible for at least one of the conflicting names on various sources (including Caltopo, Peakbagger, and LoJ).

In 1996, I wrote a guidebook to the Uinta Mountains in Utah. At the time and in Utah it was customary for guidebooks to use nearby features to name peaks in the guidebooks. That's what all the guidebooks did at the time such as Wasatch Trails 1 and 2, Hiking the Wasatch, Utah Mountaineering Guide. etc. and I followed suit with the book I wrote. For example, the mountain north of Long Mountain became "North Long Mountain" and a peak near Whiskey Island Lake became "Whiskey Island Peak". There was one peak I couldn't come up with a name for so I just tagged my wife's name on it for the guidebook ("Kimberly Peak"). A few years later the name started showing up on the Division of Wildlife Resources map (they sold my books) and some Forest Service maps. I didn't want anyone to know that I named the peak for my wife (you aren't supposed to name things after living people) so when I created the Summitpost page I put the name of Cone Peak on it.

Anyway that's why various sources vary on that name. Caltopo uses Cone Peak which migrated over from Peakbagger which migrated over from Summitpost:

https://caltopo.com/map.html#ll=40.6848 ... z=17&b=mbt

Listsofjohn uses Kimberly Peak since it uses published guidebook names (LoJ doesn't use Summitpost names are any unofficial names that aren't in a guidebook or officially published map):

https://listsofjohn.com/peak/18137

The map in the Guidebook:

20250828_104844.jpg

The above shows that in the digital age it isn't hard to create conflicting names for places.

While all of the above sources are unofficial, even the USGS gets them mixed up on a fairly regular basis. There are many examples where this has happened.