Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Thor's Frog Pond?

I've heard the small lake northwest of Thor called by a few different names: Girl Scout Lake, Thor Lake and even Barney Lake. I happened to look at Norma's Spotcast from the group hike, and the Google Terrain Map has it labeled as "Frog Pond". Anyone familiar with this name, or is it a Google euphemism for "tiny insignificant lake that we don't have a name for"?

see:

http://www.whitneyportalstore.com/forum/...=true#Post69310

Actually, the rangers up there know it as "Dave Kirk Lake", as it's the fave spot for Dave to hang on the NF...

Thanks, Mark. I guess I ought to check in here more regularly; no telling what I might learn!

This name is published in one of the guidebooks (Pg 108 - don't remember the title.) on display in the Hostel. I wonder if that makes it official and we're all wrong when we call it Girl Scout / Barney / Thor Lake?

Frog Pond is the official USGS name.

Never saw a frog there, but it is a great place for Whitney reflections.

As I make part of my living sculpting endangered species, including frogs, I decided to do a quick check on why this pond is titled "Frog Pond". Looks like there used to be a species of frog, the Yellow Legged Frog", that has been nearly wiped out in the last hundred years. In case anyone is interested, here's part of an article on a frog that was found near Mt Whitney a few years back.

Sierra Nature Notes, Volume 6, January 2006

With Recovery Efforts Underway, Danger still exists for the frogs
by Peter Stekel


Yellow-legged frog dead of Chytrid fungus near Mt. Whitney, Sequoia National Park.
At one time, the mountain yellow-legged frog (Rana muscosa) was one of the most common vertebrates in the high elevation aquatic ecosystems of the Sierra Nevada and Transverse Ranges of southern California. Then came the well-documented decline in the species that occurred with the introduction of non-native fish. The fish, primarily trout, ate frog tadpoles in large numbers. And now, an emerging infectious fungal disease, chytridiomycosis, has created another threat to the frog’s survival.