Humboldt
Peak

Humboldt Peak was named for the German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, who never visited Colorado. The name traveled with German immigrants who arrived in the Wet Mountain Valley in February 1870 under Carl Wulsten, a Prussian-born Civil War veteran, to found a short-lived cooperative colony they called Colfax. In 1874 prospector Leonard Frederick found silver on the peak's west slope and named his claim the Humboldt mine; settlers extended the name to the mountain above it.

No first ascent of the summit itself was recorded during the mining era, and no later climb has been documented well enough to name a party or date. The peak is generally regarded as the least difficult of the Crestones group, a ranking that likely made an early, unrecorded ascent by area prospectors or shepherds more probable than on its steeper neighbors. The Colorado Fourteeners Initiative has since rebuilt its summit trail and restored alpine terrain worn by decades of foot traffic.