In February 1844, John C. Fremont led a group of men over these mountains as they struggled to reach Sutter’s Fort, unaware that the pass buried 20 to 30 feet beneath the snow would soon become a major Gold Rush route. Kit Carson was among the party, although payroll records show that he was hired as a hunter and Indian Fighter while Thomas Fitzpatrick served as the expedition’s official guide. Fremont’s duties on the expedition included mapping the land, recording the flora, fauna, and elevations, evaluating land quality, and assigning names to plants and rivers; he changed Mary’s River to Humbolt River and named the river flowing east out of the mountains through Hope Valley for his friend Kit Carson. Carson Pass received its name many years later, probably because a tree in the pass bore the carving “Kit Carson 1844,” though it is unlikely Carson cut that inscription during the 1844 expedition, since weeks of heavy snowfall, deep snow, and failing food supplies made such an act improbable. In the summer of 1853, however, Kit Carson returned over this pass with a group of men and 6500 sheep headed to the gold fields, raising the possibility that he carved his name then and backdated it to 1844. An American Indian directed Fremont’s party to cross the mountains at this location, which had served as a major Indian trading route for 5,000 to 10,000 years and today carries hundreds of cars daily over the mountain.