It’s called Kit Carson, but a state advisory board in January will review alternatives more acceptable to the Diné and others
by Allen Best
My hike up Kit Carson Peak in June 2000 began with great ambition and ended with confusion. Confusion remains now, almost 24 years later, if in a different way. We’re not sure what to call the 14,167-foot summit in the Sangre de Cristo Range.
My 12 hours above treeline that day left me hypoxic, my brain suffering from too little oxygen. I insisted that the route down took us the west side of Willow Lake, but my companions knew better.
Now I contemplate what to call Kit Carson from the floor of the San Luis Valley. A proposal before the Colorado Geographic Naming Advisory Board would have us call it Frustum Peak. A frustum is a flat-topped cone or pyramid.
Still others prefer Crestone, as was considered — but rejected — by a federal board in 2011. Two other 14,000-foot peaks, Crestone Peak and Crestone Needle, lie a short distance away. Three 14ers named Crestone? One stone too many. Other names may yet be considered.
Colorado also has a town and a county named Kit Carson, but neither is up for change as they are not on federal land.
The state advisory board members will resume their discussion on Jan. 24. They will also review alternatives to Garfield County’s Dead Mexican Gulch, Jefferson County’s Redskin Creek and Redskin Mountain, and Montezuma County’s Negro Draw.
Whatever they recommend will be just that. The U.S. Board of Geographic Names has final authority for names on federal lands as Colorado seeks to cleanse its geographic drawers of names with tawdry historical footnotes. Earlier this year, the 14er west of Denver gained a new name, Blue Sky. It had been called Evans, after the territorial governor in 1864 who seemingly turned a blind eye to the Sand Creek Massacre.
Christopher Houston “Kit” Carson has a more confused and interesting story. Born in Kentucky, reared in Missouri, he fled an apprenticeship in leathermaking for western adventures. As a fur trapper, he was quite successful. He survived.
Like other trappers, he found friends – and foes – among the native Americans, taking two of them as spouses. One called it quits, putting his belongings outside their teepee, as was the custom.
Taos was his favored home. His remains are buried there along with those of Josefa, his final wife. They both died in southeastern Colorado, at Boggsville, near today’s Las Animas. By then, he was General Carson in the U.S. Army.
Kit Carson and his third wife, Josefa, both died in southeastern Colorado but are buried in Taos, which he considered home. Top, Kit Carson Peak, right, and Challenger, also a 14,000-foot peak, as seen from the area near Moffat, in the San Luis Valley. Photos/Allen Best
Consult “Blood and Thunder,” by Hampton Sides, for an immensely rewarding read about Carson. Sides acknowledges the complexities of Carson and other frontiersmen. “The mountain men lived with Indians, fought alongside and against them, loved them, married them, buried them, gambled and smoked with them,” he writes.
Trappers unwittingly left a more damning legacy.
“As the forerunners of Western civilization, creeping up the river valleys and across the mountain passes, the trappers brought small pox and typhoid, they brought guns and whiskey and venereal disease, they brought the puzzlement of money and the gleam of steel. And on their liquored breath they whispered the coming of an unimaginable force, of a gathering shadow on the eastern horizon, gorging itself on the continent as it pressed steadily this way.”
That is the conundrum of Carson. It‘s also the question many of us ask ourselves. Will we leave the world a better place – or worse? Or both?
While in the U.S. Army, Carson was responsible for corralling the recalcitrant Navajo, who had long been feared by Spanish, Hispanic and Anglo settlers because of their persistent raiding and sometimes killing. He complained to superiors about the lack of provisions for the Navajo as he marched them to an encampment in eastern New Mexico. Once there, a third died.
Afterward, although gravely ill, Carson accompanied Ute leaders to Washington D.C. at their request to represent them in meetings with President Ulysses Grant and others.
Kit Carson was photographed in 1868 in Washington D.C., shortly before his death in southeastern Colorado at the age of 59. Photo/Wikipedia
His story was complicated.
Carson was mythologized in his own time. Today, we tend to idealize Native Americans even while we fail, in some important ways, to pay them their due, such as their water rights in the Colorado River Basin.
A former newspaper columnist in Colorado Springs responded to my ruminations on Facebook with this: “In our re-naming craze, we should not name anything after humans any more. It turns out that all humans put their pants on one leg at a time.”
Conquerors generally name things in their own honor. Sometimes, we do honor the vanquished. To honor Utes, among Colorado’s 14ers we also have Antero, Shavano, and Tabeguache. We have none to honor Navajos, who call themselves Diné. If they emphatically dislike Kit Carson, so far they have not proposed an replacement.
We already have a Conundrum Peak, near Aspen.
I suggest Complicated Peak.
Mount Confusion could work, too.
Why support Big Pivots?
You need and value solid climate change reporting, and also the energy & water transitions in Colorado. Because you know that strong research underlies solid journalism, and research times take.
Plus, you want to help small media, and Big Pivots is a 501(c)3 non-profit.
Big grants would be great, but they’re rare for small media. To survive, Big Pivots needs your support. Think about how big pivots occur. They start at the grassroots. That’s why you should support Big Pivots. Because Big Pivots has influence in Colorado, and Colorado matters in the national conversation.
- A first in Colorado: Hydrogen Day - September 30, 2024
- Can Colorado actually reduce its VMT? - September 25, 2024
- Auden Schendler book makes a “must read” list - September 25, 2024
Why not complicit or conceded.
Enjoyed and appreciated your story on Kit Carson. I tend to agree with the observation that it would be a good thing to stop naming peaks – or rivers or valley or anything – after humans. Call them all ‘Conundrum (followed by a number)’ until we’ve been there long enough to know their real name….
“‘Hill’ is an awfully short name for something that’s been there so long….” Treebeard, in ‘Lord of the Rings’
– George
How about simply Ute Peak.
Hope it’s not Frustum. That word is frustratingly bad.
Nice piece, Allen. I am eager to plow into “Blood and Thunder” for a broader view of Carson. You should consider a deep dive into Frederick W. Pitkin in a future Big Pivot.
The politically correct renaming craze in many cases is revisionism run amok, seems to me. Racial slurs should be immediately eliminated, but other names are more nuanced.
Carson’s legacy is mixed, depending on who’s doing the evaluating—Navajos have good reason for disliking him, Utes feel otherwise. No matter how you cut it, he was a historically important figure.
Retaining the peak’s name would be a reminder of all that and more, a good thing, IMO. It’s important to preserve memories, good and bad.
Allen,
Having climbed Kit Carson nine during the 1970s while working Colorado Outward Bound School courses, plus once during the 1990, below I offer a few possible names for renaming Kit Carson peak, should that happen.
Conglomerate Peak—…kind of generic. But the rock on the north face of the peak is definitely a reasonably solid conglomerate (I would take students up the last pitch—lots of air to it when you move up it from the gunsight notch side, and it’s notable). But probably not.
Gunsight Peak—okay, that’s what the notch between Challenger Peak and Kit Carson looks like, not the peak itself. Has a nice ring to it, especially for all the 2nd Amendment dudes out there. (The notch really does look like a gunsight…)
Falls Peak—there is a notable waterfall at the head of Willow Lake, though I’m not much of a fan of this choice. But it would be acceptable.
Challenger Peak—WAIT! That’s the current name of the peak to the west of Kit Carson! But here’s the thing: for a summit to be deemed a separate mountain and not just a bump on a ridge, it needs to be 1 mile away from the nearest peak. The current Challenger Peak is definitely not 1 mile away from Kit Carson. Whoever approved that naming, on behalf of the state, definitely bent the rules. However, the 14ers crowd would throw a hissy fit if we proposed declassifying a 14er, so toss this idea.
Baca Peak—after the Bacas of the notable Baca land grant fame in the valley below. Nah…I think there’s probably a fair amount of baggage here, even though the subdivision below it is named Baca Grande, and there is a Baca Wildlife Refuge at the base as well.
San Luis Peak—probably not. While it looms above the San Luis Valley, so do a gazillion other peaks. And it’s not near the town of San Luis, so this isn’t a good choice.
Cougar Peak—hey, there are mountain lions up in the Sangres. Has a nice ring to it. Thing is, it might draw hunters trying to bag a cougar, which is a relatively uncommon animal. So no go…
1. Willow Peak—probably the best choice. After all, it looms above Willow Lake, which is drained by Willow Creek, which drops down to Willow Creek Park, and there are tons and tons of willows in the hanging valley above the lake and below the peak. I vote firmly for this. I think it is a worthy name.
2. Big Horn Peak—I did a search and I don’t think there is another peak with that name in Colorado. There are plenty of big horn in the area. Nice ring to it. My second choice.
There you have it. I’m probably one of a relatively few folks who have climbed the sucker 10 times, so I have at least a little standing…at least in my own mind.
Happy holidays,
Steve Andrews
How about Mt. Dine’….after the Navajo’s name for themselves?
An acknowledgement of respect for the peoples that I suspect lived in the area longer with a much softer footprint?
I’d like to see Constitution Peak.
Our state made history in 2023. Let’s have a namesake that speaks to all Americans. Please stop naming peaks after people who make outlandish declarations of discovery. Zebulon Pike never even reached the summit of Pikes Peak… what a farce. These peaks had names given to them by the native peoples who lived there. Most were named for nature, not for people. Pikes Peak was Tava. Tava meas Sun Mountain. Let’s evolve.
Dierdre, I really like this idea. Dine would be great.
Anne