What's in a Name?
local peaks and the origins of their names

By Dick Dorworth

In time, every peak has a story to tell. 

These are stories of leaders, pioneers, people especially loved, people who simply stood out. 

Griffin Butte, Hyndman, Durrance, Proctor, Ruud, Otto’s Peak: all part of the magnificent backyard we share. But beyond that, they provide portholes onto the rich history of the Wood River Valley. 

The view looking north along Main Street in Ketchum frames the stately butte just northwest of town. The popular running, hiking and mountain biking trailhead of Adams Gulch is at its base, as is the residential area of Hulen Meadows. 

Griffin Butte is an integral part of the geographic and cultural landscape of the Wood River Valley in which Sun Valley nestles. And this is entirely fitting, for it is named for Joseph F. Griffin, one of the first people to settle here. He set up his tent the first time non-indigenous settlers camped in what is now Ketchum. Griffin helped lay out the streets for the town, and he was the first foreman of the first local mine, the Elkhorn mine. He homesteaded the Griffin Ranch on land that is now Hulen Meadows.

To the east of the Wood River Valley are the spectacular Pioneer Mountains. The highest point in the Pioneers is Hyndman Peak. It is 12,078 feet above sea level and until 1929 was thought to be the highest point in Idaho. In that year, quite by accident, a U.S. Geological Service survey party made more accurate surveys that dropped Hyndman down to fifth highest peak in Idaho. It fell behind Borah, the highest, named that year for Senator William H. Borah, Leatherman and Hawley in the Lost River Range and Bell in the Lemhi Range. 

The premier peak of the Pioneers is named after a Civil War soldier, Major William Hyndman, who after the war became a lawyer and mining man (and hunter and fisherman) in central Idaho. He came to Idaho from Utah in the early 1870s where he had practiced law.

Hyndman was the superintendent and legal advisor of the Philadelphia Smelter and Mining Company of Ketchum, as well as a principal in several other mining operations. He was known as a cultured man, a shrewd businessman and a fine lawyer who “turned a neat phrase in court.” And he was known as “a good hand with a deer rifle.” 

A few miles north of Ketchum, just past the Sawtooth National Recreation Area Headquarters is a mostly treeless mountain. It is right next to State Highway 75 on the east side of the road. The mountain has an obvious big bowl running down toward the road, and in winter is a popular ski touring site. It is known as Durrance Mountain, though until 1937 it was called Boulder Ridge Mountain. In 1937 the first Harriman Cup ski race was held there. This was the infancy of big time ski racing in America, and when the great American skier Dick Durrance won the event against a strong international field, Averell Harriman, the owner and builder of Sun Valley, was so pleased with Durrance’s feat that he named the mountain in his honor.

Durrance was America’s first great ski racer as well as its first great ski filmmaker. He was instrumental in the development of the industry of skiing in the U.S. after World War II.

Proctor Mountain is just to the north and east of Sun Valley, behind Ruud Mountain with the remnants of its old chair lift and the ski jump hill. Both Proctor and Ruud Mountains are popular hiking spots in the summer and ski touring in the winter. 

Proctor Mountain is named after Charlie Proctor, who competed in the 1928 Olympics as a ski jumper and who helped Harriman get the Sun Valley resort going. Proctor’s father was a professor of physics at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire and had paved the way for Durrance to attend Dartmouth. Proctor also was instrumental in getting Badger Pass in California’s Yosemite going and was a significant figure in American skiing for many years. His daughter, Peggy Dean, lives today in Hulen Meadows.

Ruud Mountain is named after two great Norwegian ski jumpers, Sigmund and Birger Ruud. Sigmund helped Alf Engen design the jump hill next to the ski lift. The outline of the jump can still be seen there.

Sigmund Ruud was among the finest jumpers of his time, placing second in the 1928 Olympics, setting world distance records of 81.5 and 86 meters in 1931 and 1932, respectively, and winning the U.S. National Championships in 1937. His brother, Birger Ruud, won Olympic gold medals in jumping in 1932 and in 1936, the Olympic silver medal in 1948 and set world records in 1933 and 1934. He is rightfully considered one of the greatest ski jumpers of all time.

If you drive from the stoplight north of Ketchum to Sun Valley, you travel up Saddle Road. The top of the hill is the southern end of a long, north-running ridgeline that separates Sun Valley and the Trail Creek drainage from the Lake Creek drainage a few miles north of Ketchum. 

If you hike that ridge, you will have unrivaled views of the Wood River Valley and Trail Creek and the Pioneer Mountains. Eventually you will come to Triple Peaks, a popular ski mountaineering feature. If you continue past Triple Peaks to the top of that ridge at its highest point you will come to what is now known as Otto’s Peak. The High Ridge Trail from Trail Creek to Lake Creek traverses around Otto’s Peak. This is named for Jim Otteson, a much-loved, longtime Sun Valley ski patrolman and helicopter ski guide who was killed in an avalanche in the Smoky Mountains in February 1996. There is also a memorial to Otteson on Bald Mountain part way down Olympic Lane.

The mountains surrounding the Wood River Valley, indeed, resonate with tales of heroes past. •