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Are We Ready for Mt. Stur? con't
I also learned a bit about Dick Horstmann, whom I previously knew only as a Sawtooth Valley homesteader. In 1924 Horstmann leased a plot of land from the Forest Service and built a cabin and several outbuildings. He paid $35 annually for the lease. Horstman’s spread became the Redfish Lake Lodge and today the location is one of the most popular summer destinations in the state. A peak with a striking, sliver-shaped couloir near the head of Fishhook Creek now bears Horstmann’s name. About two miles north of Horstmann on the other side of Fishhook Creek stands Thompson Peak. Thompson was so named in 1916 by the Forest Service after John Thompson, a Sawtooth Valley rancher and miner. Thompson’s wife Josephine brought formal education to the Stanley area when she started teaching classes in her living room in 1914. Sorry John, but when I look at Thompson Peak in the future, I’m going to think of your wife. Another Sawtooth Valley homesteader with a mountain named in his honor is Dave Williams. Those in the area who hold down several jobs to make ends meet can relate to Williams. In order to pay the bills during his lifetime Williams opened and operated a dairy and a butcher shop, delivered the mail between Stanley and the Galena Store, went broke investing in the Vienna mine, and ran the first outfitting business in the area. Williams managed to support a wife and five children and also found time to explore and climb in the Sawtooth range. In the early 1930’s, when Robert and Mirriam Underhill (of Teton climbing and Harvard Mountaineering Club fame) came to the Sawtooths to explore the range for climbing, they hired Williams as their local guide. Together they made numerous first ascents (rumor has it Williams climbed barefoot!), including Mt. Heyburn in 1934. Not all the peaks in the Sawtooths are named after dead white guys. As the story goes, Greylock Mountain located north of the old mining town Atlanta, got its name from Chinese miners working in the area. From Atlanta, Greylock Mountain looks like a big pile of “grey rock,” which, when using their newly acquired tongue, the Chinese didn’t pronounce correctly, thus leaving us Greylock. During the course of my investigations I started wondering two things. First, how does a mountain get named, officially? And second, why was Louis Stur’s name conspicuously absent from the list of Sawtooth summits? Stur immigrated to Sun Valley from Hungary in the early 1950’s and died climbing in the Sawtooths in 1989. He spent his life exploring the range and pioneering new climbing routes on a dozen or so Sawtooth spires. Stur’s enthusiasm for the mountains was infectious, and any self-respecting granite pinnacle would be honored to take Stur’s name. A handful of Sawtooth peaks are demarcated only with an “X” and an elevation. I can’t think of a better way to conclude this article than by asking if Stur’s name shouldn’t be on one of them? |
