Kit
Carson
Peak
The Wheeler Survey mapped the peak in the 1870s as Frustum Peak. The U.S. Board on Geographic Names made Kit Carson Peak — honoring frontiersman Christopher "Kit" Carson — official in 1906 and changed it to Kit Carson Mountain in 1970. Albert Ellingwood and Eleanor Davis, fresh from their climbs of Crestone Peak and Crestone Needle, made the first recorded ascent in 1916, climbing from the southwest and descending the southeast face.
The Kit Carson name has drawn renewed objections tied to Carson's role in the U.S. Army's forced removal of Navajo people in the 1860s. The Town of Crestone petitioned for Mount Crestone in 2010; the national naming board declined in 2011. A 2020 proposal for Frustum Peak, reviving the old Wheeler Survey name, went before Colorado's naming advisory board in 2023 and 2024, which twice declined to act, leaving the mountain's name unresolved.
SOURCE Wikipedia — Kit Carson PeakNo fee or permit — Rio Grande National Forest, trailhead at the edge of Crestone. Willow Lake (4.5 mi in) is the standard camp for a two-day climb; the lake basin is heavily used, camp in established sites. Source: 14ers.com Willow Creek trailhead page, checked July 2026.