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 Information Entries for Quandary Peak and Name History

Name History (Quandary Peak)

Title: Naming of Quandary Peak

Entered by: 14erFred


Sources: Hart, J.L.J. (1977). Fourteen thousand feet: A history of the naming and early ascents of the high Colorado peaks (Second Edition). Denver, CO: The Colorado Mountain Club. The Colorado Mountain Club Foundation. (2010). The Colorado 14ers: The standard routes. Golden, CO: The Colorado Mountain Club Press.

The peak's name comes from a group of miners who were unable to identify a mineral specimen found on its slopes in the 1860s. The group was in a quandary over the exact nature of the mineral, and so dubbed the mountain from which it came "Quandary Peak." In this respect, Quandary is a somewhat distant cousin of Conundrum Peak--a "conundrum" is a paradoxical, insoluble, or difficult problem--whose name comes from a group of miners who were unable to locate the source of a nearby gold specimen. In earlier times, the mountain was called McCullough's Peak, Ute Peak, or Hoosier Peak.
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