Equality, Raven Peak mulled as names for Grand Teton summit with disgraced leader’s name

JACKSON — On a family trip to the Tetons last fall, Jim Greer, an entrepreneur and project manager from Ogden, Utah, started thinking of new names for a mountain in the northern Teton Range.

Teton peaks are generally named with indigenous words like Teewinot — a Shoshone word meaning “many pinnacles” — for critters, like Eagles Rest Peak, and for historical men, like artist Thomas Moran. 

None are named after women, Greer said. So he and his family thought up Nellie Tayloe Ross Peak to honor Wyoming’s — and the United States’ — first female governor. They later reconsidered, settling on a shorter, punchier name: “Equality Peak.”

“It’s an aspirational value that’s embedded in our democracy,” Greer said of the concept of equality.

Greer and his family submitted the name to the Wyoming Board of Geographic Names, which was tangling with what to rename Mount Woodring. In April, it recommended Equality Peak as the massif’s new moniker, sending its pitch to a national naming board, the U.S. Board on Geographic Names, which makes the call on geographic place names.

Woodring is an 11,595-foot mountain that rises over Leigh Lake south of Mount Moran, home to iconic ski lines like the Fallopian Tube Couloir.

While researching a book, Moose resident and retired professor Bob Righter discovered that the mountain’s namesake and Grand Teton National Park’s first superintendent inappropriately touched a young girl and, for doing so, was later removed from his post. 

Righter and two of his former graduate students, Paul Horton, an accomplished Teton climber, and Bruce Noble, a former National Park Service official, formed an informal committee to research Woodring and the mountain named after him.

They eventually asked the U.S. Board on Geographic Names to rename it, originally intending just to remove Woodring’s name. But in the process, the group was tasked with coming up with a new name. They selected “Raven Peak.”

They now think their chosen name should be given preference over the proposed name Equality Peak.

Wyoming historically has not lived up to its official state moniker as the Equality State, Horton said. He prefers Raven Peak because it is a name taken from the natural world and not a reminder of the state’s political and social shortcomings.

The name Equality Peak “could make a lot of people feel unhappy,” Horton said. “That alone is enough to disqualify it.”

Teton County officials are now seeking public input before weighing into the debate, accepting input at commissioners@tetoncountywy.gov.

What’s in a name?

The naming issue comes as Americans grapple with what to call everything from military bases to mountains.

While the U.S. Board on Geographic Names has the final say on names for geographic places, the President or U.S. Congress can override the naming authority. On the first day of his second term, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to restore the name “Mount McKinley” to Alaska’s tallest peak, officially dubbed “Denali” in 2015 to honor Indigenous peoples’ name for the mountain. Trump has also restored the names of seven Army bases, like Fort Robert E. Lee, honoring Confederate leaders.

The United States Board of Geographic Names has not made its decision and is seeking input from agencies like Teton County and Teton Park before doing so, according to Elisabeth Hernandez, executive director of the Wyoming Board of Geographic Names.

Given Woodring’s tumultuous past, the 13-member state board, composed of state officials and individuals appointed by the governor, voted this spring to remove the park boss’ name from the Teton peak.

They then voted to recommend renaming the mountain Equality Peak.

“Wyoming may not be the peak of equality in society,” member Jessica Otto said at an April meeting. “It’s something to strive for.”

Although the Wyoming Board of Geographic Names has already removed Woodring’s name from the mountain, the U.S. naming board does not remove names without assigning new ones, Hernandez said. That means the peak is still technically called Mount Woodring, but the state can remove the name from any promotional products. It’s not clear when the national board will make its decision, Hernandez said.

Rallying support

When Greer, who pitched Equality Peak, learned a group of Wyoming high schoolers in Green River had recently wrapped up a project on Gov. Nellie Tayloe Ross, who inspired his family’s original idea for a name, he got in touch with their teacher.

Greer asked Green River High School’s senior government teacher Bridgette Nielson to read his proposal to rename the mountain Equality Peak. The students did so, and many found it convincing, Nielson said.

But a group of Green River girls preferred “Mount Liberty,” saying liberty encompasses equality but also hints at respect for America’s wide open spaces and way of life, Nielson said.

“I was so proud of them,” she said. “I want to teach my students to know that their voice matters, and it’s important to be involved.”

But because the board received so many letters supporting Equality Peak from Green River high schoolers, it opted to move forward with Equality Peak, rather than Mount Liberty, Nielson said.

Skiing and civics

In the late 1990s, Mark Newcomb led a group of young skiers up and then down the mountain then named for Woodring.

“The snow was soft and it was a calm sunny day,” Newcomb told the News&Guide, “kind of the perfect classic day when you can stand on a Teton summit and see all kinds of other great skiing possibilities.”

Newcomb, the mountain guide-turned-chair of the Teton County Board of County Commissioners, led a meeting Monday in which commissioners briefly discussed a new name for the northern Teton point of prominence. He favored the name pitched by Righter, Horton and Noble: Raven Peak.

Newcomb has sat atop the Grand Teton many times and watched ravens play around in the high elevation wind currents.

“It’s pretty awe-inspiring,” Newcomb said.

Ravens are commonly featured in Native American stories and traditions. The name, Newcomb said, might remind people of the great respect Native Americans had for the Tetons.

Teton County Commission Vice Chair Wes Gardner said Raven Peak was a nice, “non-sticky” name for the mountain.

Commissioners discussed sending a letter Monday to the U.S. Board on Geographic Names. Instead, the five-member board opted to hold off and gather public input, then send a letter to the U.S. naming board.

Strong women

The Wyoming Board of Geographic Names considered — but shortly thereafter ruled out — naming the Teton peak for another famous Wyoming matriarch.

At an October meeting, board member Calvin Williams suggested naming the mountain “Mount Grizzly 399.” A commuter had just struck and killed the world famous bear. Shelley Messer, then executive director of the naming board, liked the idea.

“If we’re going to name it after a strong female, Mount Grizzly 399 would be appropriate,” Messer said. “She is iconic.”

But the Board of Geographic Names “strongly discourages proposals to apply proper animal names or nicknames to geographic features,” Messer said.

The board never formally voted on the grizzly name but the discussion stopped there.