Mount
Columbia

Roger W. Toll named the peak in 1916 for Columbia University, his alma mater, honoring its 1878 rowing victory at the Henley Royal Regatta in England. Toll made the first recorded ascent that year while placing Colorado Mountain Club summit registers across the Sawatch Range. The name joined an existing cluster — Harvard and Yale had been named in 1869, and Princeton had followed — giving the group its Collegiate Peaks label.

For years, most climbers reached the summit via a steep, unofficial scree path up the west slopes that eroded badly under heavy traffic. In 2021 the Colorado Fourteeners Initiative completed a new sustainable trail on those slopes, bypassing the old route. The standard approach today follows Horn Fork Basin, an 11-mile round trip through the Collegiate Peaks Wilderness that gains about 5,800 feet.