Читать книгу Shaped by Snow. Defending the Future of Winter онлайн

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The origin of the name Wasatch is disputed; some sources cite it as a Ute word for “mountain” or a “low place in high mountains,” while others claim it comes from the Shoshone word for “blue heron.” A rumor that the name comes from a Native American word for “frozen penis” circulates through the valley every few years. Sometimes I wonder why so many associate mountains and peaks with the intruding curve of a phallus. When I look at the Wasatch, I see the shape of a woman.

The word cache (of Wasatch-Cache) is more easily defined. A French word with Latin roots, a cache is a place to hide or to store things. It was brought to this region by French trappers, some of the first Europeans to venture as far west as the Wasatch, who used the mountains to store food, supplies, furs, and other tradable goods. Later, notorious robbers, like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, would use the mountains as hiding places. A cache might also refer to the natural stores of gold and silver that drew miners up into the mountains in the 1800s.