Ball Crag

[MarkJ]

Having read 3 days on the white mts by dr b l ball in an event 1855 during which he spent 2 days in a crag blocking the wind with minor protection to cover him in from major winds and snow in late Oct...........I thought if he had reached that spot at 6100 ft and is it named for him....googled it and found nothing....anyone out there to find info on this?

 

[Lefty E]

Googled ball crag white mountains and got a ton of stuff...Nelson Crag Trail goes over this crag too, near the summit of Washington...do not underestimate the Nelson Crag Trail, though a great trail on a great day....

 

[Ken MacGray]

Hm. Googling "Ball Crag NH" returns lots of results: https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=ball crag nh

 

[nartreb]

The question, I think, is "was the crag named for the Dr Ball who got stuck on the mountain in 1855?"

The answer seems to be "yes":

https://books.google.com/books?id=m...YQ6AEINDAE#v=onepage&q=ball crag 1855&f=false

I can't find any mention of when the name was officially adopted.

Edit: here is Dr Ball's first-hand account, in full:
http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=loc.ark:/13960/t30290f9w;view=1up;seq=7

His story is also mentioned in _Not Without Peril_; I don't have it in front of me but there's a chance that book would mention when the crag was named.

I did find a couple of maps from 1907 and 1910 that show Nelson Crag but not Ball Crag, e.g. http://www.whitemountainhistory.org/images/1910_cutter_gr_gulf_for_desc.jpg

CalTopo's Historic Maps setting has the name appearing sometime between 1915 and 1945.

 

[evilhanz]

In August 1931, Jenks, Blood, and Larrabee of the AMC retraced Dr. Ball's journey and found that they could follow his course with "remarkable accuracy". They determined that the unnamed prominence sometimes called Upper Nelson Crag was the highest point reached by Dr. Ball and proposed naming it Ball Crag in their written account in Applalachia Journal (XVIII p448-453,488-490). That recommendation appears in a 1931 Appalachia Bulletin. The 1934 White Mountain Guide includes Ball Crag in the description of the Nelson Crag Trail, but the 1931 Guide does not.