Mount Elbert, in the Sawatch Range southwest of Leadville near Twin Lakes, is Colorado’s highest mountain, the highest summit in the Rocky Mountains of North America, and the highest point in the Mississippi River drainage basin at 14,440 feet. Named for Samuel Hitt Elbert after his role in an 1873 treaty that opened Ute land to mining and railroads, it was first recorded as climbed in 1874 by Henry W. Stuckle of the Hayden Survey. Known as the “gentle giant,” it has non-technical but strenuous routes, while fast-changing weather poses greater danger than the terrain. Its quartzite and ancient metamorphic rocks also preserve striking evidence of uplift and glaciation.