Albert H. Sylvester named over 1,000—perhaps as many as 3,000 natural features in the Cascade Range, including Enchantment Lakes,
Dishpan Gap, Lake Margaret,
Lake Ethel, Lake Mary, Lake Florence, Lake Flora, Kodak Peak, the "Poets' Ridge" peaks Irving, Poe, Longfellow, Bryant, and Whittier. Of the Enchantment Lakes area, now a very popular backpacking destination known as
The Enchantments, he wrote, "it was an enchanting scene. I named the group Enchantment Lakes." During his career the region between
Snoqualmie Pass and the
North Cascades, where he did most of his work, was frequently updated with new maps showing the results of ongoing USGS and Forest Service surveying and exploring. This made it possible for Sylvester's
place names to become well established and used. His prolific place naming was due in part to
Gifford Pinchot, the first
Chief of the Forest Service. During the Pinchot era
national forests were relatively new and often largely unmapped and lacking in place names. In order to better protect the forests from
wildfire it was necessary to have names for natural features and detailed maps so that fires could be located by name and fire fighters sent to the right places. In regions like the Wenatchee National Forest there were a large number of unnamed features. Significant parts of the mountains were essentially unexplored, except by Native Americans and, in some areas,
prospectors, who tended to be secretive about their discoveries. Thus Sylvester found himself exploring and mapping a large region with relatively few established names and what amounted to a mandate to bestow names. Sylvester's place names are scattered over much of the central and northern Cascades in Washington. They are particularly dense in the
Wenatchee Mountains,
Entiat Mountains,
Chelan Mountains, and the
Glacier Peak area, today's
Glacier Peak Wilderness. In some river basins, such as the
Chiwawa River,
Little Wenatchee River,
White River, and
Entiat River basins, nearly every stream and peak was named by Sylvester. His naming was often creative, patterned, sometimes practical and descriptive, sometimes whimsical. Examples of patterned place naming include Aurora Creek and Borealis Ridge, Choral and Anthem Creeks ("singing streams"), all in the upper Entiat valley; the three "baking powder creeks", Royal, Crescent, and Schilling Creeks, named for then-popular brands of baking powder; the American poets' peaks Bryant Peak (for
William Cullen Bryant), Irving Peak (for
Washington Irving), Longfellow Mountain (
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow), Poe Mountain (for
Edgar Allan Poe), and
Whittier Peak (for
John Greenleaf Whittier). He named Indian Pass and Indian Creek for the ancient Indian trail over the pass, and in association he named nearby
Indian Head Peak and Papoose Creek, a tributary of Indian Creek. Near Indian Creek he named Kloochman Creek and Tillicum Creek,
Chinook Jargon terms for wife and friend, "figuring that an Indian should have both a wife and a friend".
Labyrinth Mountain was named for the appearance of its complex contour lines on a map, and in association Sylvester named Minotaur and Theseus Lakes on the mountain. He named
Mount David and Mount Jonathan, close to one another, and
Mount Saul across Indian Creek valley from them, as in Biblical history
Saul being close to but forever separated from
David and Jonathan. In naming lakes Sylvester began a tradition, continued by many others, of naming lakes for women. Examples include Lake Alice, for his wife; Lake Margaret and Lake Mary for the sisters of ranger Brune Canby, and Lake Florence for a friend of the Canby sisters; Lake Augusta, for his mother;
Lake Ethel, for the wife of Forest Service Ranger Frank Lenzie; Lake Ida, for his sister-in-law; Josephine Lake, for the wife of ranger Jason Williams; Lake Edna, for the sweetheart of a forest ranger; Lake Flora, for the wife of ranger Otto Green; Lake Grace, for the wife of Charles Haydon with whom Sylvester was exploring; Lake Lorraine, for the wife of Assistant Supervisor C. J. Conover; and
Loch Eileen, for the daughter of ranger Jason Williams. ==Mountaineering==