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50-474: Columbia Point is subpeak of Kit Carson Mountain . It was known informally as Kat Carson, but was officially named Columbia Point in 2003 to honor the seven astronauts who died when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during re-entry on February 1, 2003. With a topographic prominence over 300 ft (91 m), it qualifies as a separate summit under the standard cutoff, but it is not

100-535: A bosque means a river-bottom forest usually containing cottonwood trees). The march was very difficult and pushed many Navajos to their breaking point. Many began the walk exhausted and malnourished, others were not properly clothed and were not in the least prepared for such a long journey. They were also treated cruelly by the soldiers leading the march. They were never informed as to where they were going, why they were being relocated, or how long it would take to get there. One account passed through generations within

150-669: A scorched earth policy to starve the Navajo out of their traditional homeland and force them to surrender. By early 1864 thousands of Navajo began surrendering. Some Navajos refused and scattered to Navajo Mountain , the Grand Canyon , the territory of the Chiricahua Apache, and to parts of modern day Utah . Major General James H. Carleton was assigned to the New Mexico Territory in the fall of 1862, it

200-478: A band of Navajo freelancing raiding parties broke these rules, for which the entire tribe was penalized. In the eyes of Carleton, he was unsuccessful and enlisted outside resources for aid including famous mountain man Kit Carson. Carson also enlisted neighboring tribes in aiding his campaign to capture as many Navajos as he could. One tribe that proved to be most useful was the Utes. The Utes were very knowledgeable of

250-702: A central encampment near the village of Cubero. In return they would be offered government protection. Ward was instructed to warn all Navajos who refused to come that they would be treated as enemies; many came. Evans was overseeing the abandonment of Fort Lyon and had been told that the new policy was that the Navajo had to be removed to settlements or pueblos , mentioning the region of the Little Colorado west of Zuni as possibly an ideal place. In November, some Navajo started raiding again. On December 1, Canby wrote to his superior in St. Louis that "recent occurrences in

300-511: A company of 52 citizens led by Jose Manuel Sanchez drove off a bunch of Navajo horses, but Captain Wingate followed the trail and recovered them for the Navajo, who had killed Sanchez. Another group of settlers ravaged Navajo rancherias in the vicinity of Beautiful Mountain . Also, during this time, a party of Mexicans and Pueblo Indians captured 12 Navajo in a raid, and three were brought in. On August 9, 1861, Lt. Col. Manuel Antonio Chaves of

350-407: A gunshot from where they had been a short time ago. At least 200 died during the 18-day, 300-mile (500-km) trek. Between 8,000 and 9,000 people were settled on an area of 40 square miles (104 km ), with a peak population of 9,022 by the spring of 1865. There were as many as 50 groups taking one of seven known routes. They each took a different path but were on the same trail. When returning to

400-465: A high elevation trailhead; however this road will be closed halfway up on October 13, 2009.) This route starts by using part of the trail for Humboldt Peak , and then traverses a ridge and plateau toward Kit Carson. A sub-peak named Columbia Point (informally known as "Kat Carson") is climbed on the way to the main summit. Kit Carson does not have any glaciers but it does have a semi-permanent ice patch on its rugged north face, which rarely melts even in

450-524: A trading post made a trip to DC to lobby for a reservation for this Band and it was granted. This Band is part Navajo and part Apache. The campaign to subdue the Navajo by the Army was supplemented by raids by New Mexican and Ute slavers who fell on isolated bands of Navajo, killing the men, taking the women and children captive, and capturing horses and livestock. During the army campaign the Ute scouts attached to

500-551: A well-known peak. The USGS Board of Geographic Names approved the name of Columbia Point in June, 2003. On the weekend of August 7, 2003, a group consisting of family members, astronauts, friends and climbers installed a memorial plaque on the summit. The trip included a dedication service for the memorial, and an F16 flyby in missing man formation . Today, we name a point in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of Colorado in honor of

550-687: Is a high mountain summit of the Crestones in the Sangre de Cristo Range of the Rocky Mountains of North America . Officially designated Kit Carson Mountain , the 14,165.2-foot (4,318 m) fourteener is located 5.2 miles (8.4 km) ESE ( bearing 102°) of the Town of Crestone in Saguache County , Colorado , United States . The name Kit Carson Mountain is used for both

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600-399: Is that the sudden rise of xeroderma pigmentosum is directly related to widespread contamination from uranium mining. Navajo artist Richard K. Yazzie created a mural entitled Long Walk Home for the city of Gallup, New Mexico. It is located at the intersection of Third and Hill streets. It is rendered in the four "sacred colors", black, white, blue and yellow. A famous song was composed by

650-554: Is then that he would subdue the Navajos of the region and force them on the long walk to Bosque Redondo. Upon being assigned the territory Carleton set boundaries in which the Navajos would not engage in any sort of conflict. They were prohibited from trespassing onto lands, raiding neighboring tribes, and engaging in warfare with both the Spaniards and European Americans. A majority of the Navajos were abiding by these requirements, but

700-714: The Nature Conservancy announced the signing of a $ 31 million purchase agreement for the Baca Ranch . The purchase significantly expanded the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve in 2004. As part of that complex transaction Kit Carson Mountain was transferred to the Sangre de Cristo Wilderness within the Rio Grande National Forest . Kit Carson Mountain features complex terrain that has misled climbers in

750-541: The New Mexico Volunteer Militia took command of a garrison of three companies numbering 8 officers and 206 men at Fort Fauntleroy . Chaves was later accused of holding back supplies intended for the 1,000 or more Navajos who had remained close to the fort and was maintaining only lax discipline. Horse races began on September 10 and continued into the late afternoon of September 13. Col. Chaves permitted Post Sutler A. W. Kavanaugh to supply liquor to

800-480: The massif with three summits ( Columbia Point , Kit Carson Peak and Challenger Point ), or to describe the main summit only. The mountain is named in honor of frontiersman Christopher Houston "Kit" Carson . The Crestones are a cluster of high summits in the Sangre de Cristo Range, comprising Crestone Peak , Crestone Needle , Kit Carson Peak, Challenger Point , Humboldt Peak , and Columbia Point . They are usually accessed from common trailheads. In January 2002,

850-569: The Bosque Redondo. There was inept management of the supplies purchased for the reservation . The army spent as much as $ 1.5 million a year to feed the Native Americans. In 1868 the experiment—meant to be the first Indian reservation west of Indian Territory —was abandoned. A memorial site honoring those who were incarcerated at Bosque Redondo is located at Fort Sumner, New Mexico. The Treaty of Bosque Redondo between

900-456: The Civil War. Incidentally, local residents for decades had called the mountain "Crestone Peak" (the official name of a neighboring peak), and never called it by "that other name". One popular route on Kit Carson Mountain climbs from the west side of the range, starting at Willow Creek Trailhead (elevation: 8,900 ft or 2,700 m). This route first climbs Challenger Point , just to

950-803: The Confederates down the Rio Grande . The United States government again determined to eliminate Navajo raiding and raids on the Navajo. James H. Carleton was ordered to relieve Canby as Commander for the New Mexico Military Department in September ;1862. Carleton ordered Colonel Christopher "Kit" Carson to proceed to Navajo territory and to receive the Navajo surrender on July 20, 1863. When no Navajos showed up, Carson and another officer entered Navajo territory in an attempt to persuade Navajos to surrender and used

1000-459: The Long Walk and were able to successfully increase the size of their reservation since then, to over 16 million acres (70,000 km ). After relating 20 pages of material concerning the Long Walk, Howard Gorman, age 73 at the time, concluded: As I have said, our ancestors were taken captive and driven to Hwéeldi for no reason at all. They were harmless people, and, even to date, we are

1050-626: The Long Walk...is critical to contemporary Navajos' sense of identity as a people". The traditional Navajo homeland spans from Arizona through New Mexico . Navajo built houses, planted crops, and raised livestock there. Groups or bands raided and traded with each other, making and breaking treaties. This included interactions between the Navajo, Spanish , Mexican , Pueblos , Apache , Comanche , Ute , and later American settlers . Any of them could be victims of these conflicts and also instigate conflicts to pursue their interests. Hostilities escalated between American settlers and Navajos following

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1100-592: The Navajo country have so demoralized and broken up [the Navajo] nation that there is now no choice between their absolute extermination or their removal and colonization at points so remote...as to isolate them entirely from the inhabitants of the Territory. Aside from all considerations of humanity, the extermination of such a people will be the work of the greatest difficulty." By 1862, the Union Army had pushed

1150-526: The Navajo lands, they reformed their group to become one; this group was ten miles (16 km) long. Some of these Navajos escaped and hid with Apaches that were running from Gen. Crook on what is known as Cimmaron Mesa southeast of present-day NM Highway 6 and I-40; later they relocated to Alamo Springs northwest of Magdalena, NM and are known as the Alamo Band of the Diné (Navajos). Nelson Anthony Field who had

1200-425: The Navajo when they were set free about their return to their homeland, Shí naashá (I am going) . A supposed remnant of the Long Walk from Bosque Redondo, a rug called Woven Sorrow, figures prominently as a valuable antique in the plot of The Shape Shifter by Tony Hillerman , published in 2006. Anne Hillerman mentioned the Long Walk in a subsequent novel in the series, Cave of Bones (2018). The story of

1250-469: The Navajos could not manufacture for themselves. The signers of the document were: W. T. Sherman (Lt. General), S. F. Tappan (Indian Peace Commissioner), Navajos Barboncito (Chief), Armijo, Delgado, Manuelito , Largo, Herrero, Chiquito, Muerte de Hombre, Hombro, Narbono, Narbono Segundo and Ganado Mucho. Those who attested the document included Theo H. Dodd (Indian Agent) and B. S. Roberts (General 3rd Cav). On June 18, 1868,

1300-473: The Navajos shows the attitude of the U.S. Army: It was said that those ancestors were on the Long Walk with their daughter, who was pregnant and about to give birth [...] the daughter got tired and weak and couldn't keep up with the others or go further because of her condition. So my ancestors asked the Army to hold up for a while and to let the woman give birth, but the soldiers wouldn't do it. They forced my people to move on, saying that they were getting behind

1350-521: The Navajos. A dispute emerged about which horse won a race. A shot rang out, followed by a fusillade. Almost immediately 200 Navajo, well-armed and mounted, advanced toward the Guard, shooting at the men. They were fired upon by the soldiers and scattered, leaving 12 dead and forty prisoners. On hearing this, General Canby demanded a report from Chaves, who did not comply. Canby sent Captain Andrew W. Evans to

1400-481: The Navajos. The Mescaleros and the Navajo had a long tradition of raiding each other; the two tribes had many disputes during their encampment. Furthermore, the initial plan was for around 5,000 people, nowhere near the 10,000 men, women, and children who eventually resided in the camp. Water and firewood were major issues from the start; the water was brackish, and the round grove of trees was quite small. Nature and humans both caused crop failures every year. The corn crop

1450-491: The Space Shuttle Columbia. Seven brave astronauts perished during her final mission on February 1, 2003. Columbia Point is an appropriate honor for this shuttle's last voyage. Those who explore space in the days ahead may gaze back at Earth - and know that Columbia Point is there to commend a noble mission. The point looks up to the heavens and it allows us, once again, to thank our heroes who soared far beyond

1500-510: The United States and many of the Navajo leaders was concluded at Fort Sumner on June 1, 1868. Some of the provisions included establishing a reservation, restrictions on raiding, a resident Indian Agent and agency, compulsory education for children, the supply of seeds, agricultural implements and other provisions, rights of the Navajos to be protected, establishment of railroads and forts, compensation to tribal members, and arrangements for

1550-830: The area, and thus not as quickly available to respond. Long Walk of the Navajo The Long Walk of the Navajo , also called the Long Walk to Bosque Redondo ( Spanish : larga caminata del navajo), was the deportation and ethnic cleansing of the Navajo people by the United States federal government and the United States army . Navajos were forced to walk from their land in western New Mexico Territory (modern-day Arizona and New Mexico ) to Bosque Redondo in eastern New Mexico . Some 53 different forced marches occurred between August 1864 and

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1600-438: The army unit engaged in this activity and left destruction of Navajo infrastructure to the main army unit. Following the surrender of the Navajo, the Utes continued to raid the Navajo as did New Mexican slavers. A large number of slaves were taken and sold throughout the region. Like some internment camps involving several tribes, the Bosque Redondo had serious problems. About 400 Mescalero Apaches were placed there before

1650-408: The couloir looks like a short cut down, and starts off gently enough, it leads to ice fields, and on the edges it quickly becomes cliffed-out, with patches of scree and loose rock, ending in sheer and highly technical terrain. Search and Rescue teams regularly recover bodies from the bottom of the couloir. Bodies that do not make it to the bottom require highly specialized technical teams, not local to

1700-408: The driest years (such as 2002 and 2006). During the summer Kit Carson and the neighboring peaks are hit with a diurnal cycle of thunder storms, which often form within a short time period; lightning occurs almost daily and has killed climbers as recently as 2003. Fatalities also occur because climbers make the mistake of descending the couloir (gulley) between the summit and Challenger Point. Though

1750-466: The end of 1866. In total, 10,000 Navajos and 500 Mescalero Apache were forced to the internment camp in Bosque Redondo. During the forced march and internment, up to 3,500 people died from starvation and disease over a four-year period. In 1868, the Navajo were allowed to return to their ancestral homeland following the Treaty of Bosque Redondo . Some anthropologists state that the "collective trauma of

1800-483: The forced relocation is the setting of the youth fiction novel The Girl Who Chased Away Sorrow , written in 1999 by Ann Turner . In the 1979 Stephen King novel The Long Walk (written under the pen name Richard Bachman ) two Hopis are among one hundred teenage boys who participate in a competitive and voluntary death march which serves as a macabre annual spectacle in a totalitarian re-imagining of America. Scott O'Dell 's Newbury Award-winning book Sing Down

1850-443: The fort and almost took control. Truces and treaties committed the Army to protect the Navajo. However, the Army allowed other Native American tribes and Mexicans to steal livestock and enslave Navajos. A truce was signed on February 15, 1861. They were again promised protection, but as part of the truce, two of the Navajo's four sacred mountains were taken from them, as well as about one-third of their traditional land. In March,

1900-464: The fort, named Fort Lyon on September 25, who took command. Manuel Chaves, suspended from command, was confined to Albuquerque pending court-martial. (The charges were dismissed after two months.) In February 1861, Chaves took the field with 400 militia and ransacked Navajo land, without federal authority. With Confederate troops moving into southern New Mexico, Canby sent Agent John Ward into Navajo lands to persuade any who might be friendly to move to

1950-607: The freezing temperature of the winter months. The "Long Walk" started at the beginning of spring 1864. Bands of Navajo led by the Army were relocated from their traditional lands in eastern Arizona Territory and western New Mexico Territory to Fort Sumner (in an area called the Bosque Redondo or Hwéeldi by the Navajo) in the Pecos River valley (Bosque Redondo is Spanish for "round forest"—in New Mexican Spanish

2000-596: The lands of the Navajos and were very familiar with Navajo strongholds as well. Carson launched his full-scale assault on the Navajo population in January 1864. He destroyed everything in his path, eradicating the way of life of the Navajo people. Hogans were burned to the ground, livestock was killed off, and irrigated fields were destroyed. Navajos who surrendered were taken to Fort Canby and those who resisted were murdered. Some Navajos were able to escape Carson's campaign but were soon forced to surrender due to starvation and

2050-550: The mountain, traveled past the sky -- and live on in our memories forever. The plaque reads: In Memory of the Crew of Shuttle Columbia Seven who died accepting the risk, Expanding humankind's horizons February 1, 2003 "Mankind is led into the darkness beyond our world by the inspiration of discovery and the longing to understand. Our journey into space will go on." Kit Carson Mountain Kit Carson Peak

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2100-409: The once-scattered bands of people who call themselves Diné , set off together on the return journey, the "Long Walk" home. This is one of the few instances where the U.S. government permitted a tribe to return to their traditional boundaries. The Navajo were granted 3.5 million acres (14,000 km ) of land inside their four sacred mountains. The Navajo also became a more cohesive tribe after

2150-402: The others. The soldier told the parents that they had to leave their daughters behind. "Your daughter is not going to survive, anyway; sooner or later she is going to die," they said in their own language. "Go ahead," the daughter said to her parents, "things might come out all right with me," But the poor thing was mistaken, my grandparents used to say. Not long after they had moved on, they heard

2200-601: The past, contributing to deaths in the summer of 2006, 2010, 2011 and 2019. In 2011, the United States Board on Geographic Names considered a proposal to rename the peak Mount Crestone, voting unanimously against it due to the potential confusion with nearby Crestone Peak and Crestone Needle . The proposal had been put forward because Carson had led an 1863-64 campaign to remove Navajo Indians , who had increased raiding of settlements in New Mexico during

2250-422: The return of Navajos to the reservation established by the treaty. The Navajo agreed for ten years to send their children to school and the U.S. government agreed to establish schools with teachers for every thirty Navajo children. The U.S. government also promised for ten years to give to the Navajos annually: clothing, goods, and other raw materials, not exceeding the value of five dollars per person, that

2300-494: The same, holding no harm for anybody...Many Navajos who know our history and the story of Hwéeldi say the same. Not all the Navajo were captured and forced to take the long walk. Geneticists believe that a genetic bottleneck developed among the small, isolated, uncaptured groups. This produced the consequence of otherwise rare genetic diseases, for example xeroderma pigmentosum , stemming from recessive genes achieving greater dominance. An alternative put forth by some Navajo

2350-469: The scalping of respected Navajo leader Narbona in 1849. In August 1851, Colonel Edwin Vose Sumner established Fort Defiance for the U.S. government (near present-day Window Rock, Arizona ) and Fort Wingate (originally Fort Fauntleroy near Gallup, New Mexico ). Prior to the Long Walk, treaties were signed in 1849, 1858, and 1861. Friction between invading American settlers and Navajo groups

2400-500: The west of Kit Carson. Climbing from the saddle between Challenger Point to Kit Carson peak involves crossing a path commonly called 'Kit Carson Avenue'. Total elevation gain for this route is 6,250 ft (1,905 m), in a 14 miles (23 km) round-trip. Kit Carson can also be reached from the east side of the Sangre de Cristos via the South Colony Lakes access. (A four-wheel drive road currently provides relatively

2450-485: Was infested with army worms and failed repeatedly. The Pecos River flooded and washed out the head gates of the irrigation system. In 1865 Navajo began leaving. By 1867 the remaining Navajo refused to plant a crop. Comanches raided them frequently, and they raided the Comanche, once stealing over 1,000 horses. The non-Indian settlers also suffered from the raiding parties who were trying to feed their starving people on

2500-560: Was widespread between 1846 and 1863. Manuelito and Barboncito reminded the Navajo that the US Army was sending troops to wage war, that it had flogged a Navajo messenger, and that it opened fire on tribal headsman “Agua Chiquito”, during talks for peace. They argued that the army had refused to bring in feed for their animals at Ft. Defiance, took over the prime grazing land, and killed Manuelito's livestock there. On April 30, 1860, Manuelito and Barboncito with 1,000 Navajo warriors attacked

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