Mount Columbia (Colorado) facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Mount Columbia
Mount Columbia as seen from Mount Harvard
Highest point
Elevation	14,077 ft (4,291 m)
Prominence	893 ft (272 m)
Isolation	1.90 mi (3.06 km)
Parent peak	Mount Harvard
Listing	Colorado Fourteener 35th
Geography
Mount Columbia Location in Colorado
Location	Chaffee County, Colorado, U.S.
Parent range	Sawatch Range, Collegiate Peaks
Topo map	USGS 7.5' topographic map Mount Columbia, Colorado
Climbing
First ascent	1916 by Roger Toll
Easiest route	Scramble

For other mountains by this name, see Mount Columbia.

Mount Columbia is a high mountain summit of the Collegiate Peaks in the Sawatch Range of the Rocky Mountains of North America. The 14,077-foot (4,291 m) fourteener is located in the Collegiate Peaks Wilderness of San Isabel National Forest, 9.9 miles (16.0 km) northwest by west (bearing 301°) of the Town of Buena Vista in Chaffee County, Colorado, United States. The mountain was named in honor of Columbia University in the City of New York and in commemoration of its rowing victory at the renowned Henley Royal Regatta in 1878.

Mountain

Along with nearby Mount Harvard, Mount Yale, Mount Princeton, and Mount Oxford, Mount Columbia is one of five Collegiate Peaks named for prominent universities. Due to a notoriously challenging scree field located on the standard route, Mount Columbia is usually only climbed by those wishing to climb all of Colorado's fourteeners. The forest service recommends that hikers take the user-created Horn Fork Basin Route, an 11-mile roundtrip that gains 5,800 feet in elevation. The area near the scree field is severely eroded, and although there are efforts to build a new trail to replace the current user-created trail, the formal trail has not yet been completed.