LEARNING TO LOVE SCOTLAND - Mountain Names

Addendum: Mountain Names

Since the general theme of this outing has been mountains lets take a brief moment to talk about the names that people give them. Most of the time I find that the names of mountains almost always end up being some kind of anticlimax. Sometimes they're given a short, innocuous sounding title that belies their mighty nature, take K2 for example. K2 is the second highest mountain in the world and arguably one of the most dangerous, the most treacherous and lethal to climb, the death rate on this utterly murderous peak has led people to call it 'The Savage Mountain'. Yet it is still referred to as K2, the original notation given to it by the Great Trigonometric Survey group that studied the peaks many years ago.

But the most common let-down with mountain names is the tendency for them to have impressive sounding titles that, when translated, actually don't sound nearly as interesting. Let's take the Gaelic names for most of the mountains in Scotland. We'll start with Stob Dearg. Apparently this means 'Red Peak', that's it. This huge imposing fortress of a mountain is given a name no more interesting than an understated and, I might also add, misleading description, it's not even a bit red! In my mind, Dearg (pronounced Jerrag) was a mighty demon of unimaginable power who killed so many locals that he made a massive pile of their skulls that stood so high it formed the mountain that now bears his name! And the small streams running down the mountain are the tears of those people! Or something like that. Actually I didn't think that at all I just made it up right now on the spot but you get the idea.

But literal and or tame descriptions of ominous and imposing peaks seem to be the main theme of Gaelic named mountains in the highlands. The thrilling Carn Mor Dearg which I climbed to make the ridge scramble to Ben Nevis simply means 'big red rounded mountain'. And the name Sgurr a' Mhadaidh in the Black Cuillin range simply means 'peak of the fox' and not 'horns of satan' or 'big bloody scary dangerous pointy teeth of Beelzebub'. Ironically there was one area of the West Highland way known as the Devil's Staircase. It's the name of the so called steep section that leads up to the highest point on the Way, of course it was an absolute walk in the park compared to some of the other climbs I had tackled. Incidentally it stood just across from the imposing cliff face of Stob Dearg's east face, now THAT is what the Devil's Staircase should be!

Even peaks in other countries are sometimes a bit of a let-down. Take Mount Everest for example. For me the name conjured up thoughts of time and eternity (you see: Everest - forever), the classic image of a colossal, the most colossal peak that will never change and never be moved! Then it turns out that it was just named after some bloke named Everest!

While we're on the subject of mountain nomenclature I should point out that my absolute favourite is Kilimanjaro. Now that is a name for a mountain! Try saying it out loud. Now say it again with as deep a voice as you can manage and make sure to really over-enunciate every syllable and sustain the last one for as long as possible: "KILIMANJAROOOOO!" Yeah now we're talking! Huge mountains like this sounds great when they have a syllable intensive name attributed to them, not to mention that the first part of the name sounds like KILL!

But I must admit, I'm almost afraid to look up the explanation behind the name Kilimanjaro. It'll probably turn out that it was named after some kindly old elf who helped children with their math homework. Or something.