Elevation of Spirit: Indigenous Name Tavá Mountain Could Replace Pikes Peak in a ‘Few Years’

April 11, 2024 | NEWS | By Liam Cardenas Ferguson

The mountain looms high into the sky. Gendarmes protrude off its vast ridges and steep couloirs scar the peak’s reddish face. It is a knotted, heaping mass lost in an ocean of prairie, freckles of pines, and deep granite canyons. 

Tavá Mountain, better known as Pikes Peak, has captured people for millennia with its beauty, from the Ute Natives of times past to the townspeople of Colorado Springs in our modern day. However, recent controversy over the mountain’s name has led to a possible name change of the massif, in hopes of honoring cultural significance the mountain holds for the people of Southern Colorado. 

Named after Zebulon Pike — a general and explorer who saw the mountain in 1806 but never made it to the summit — the mountain’s name has drawn criticism in large part because of its association with 19th-century colonialism. 

The mountain has held 21 names since the beginning of the 19th century, from indigenous titles to colonist names that eventually settled on the name Pikes Peak in 1859 following the gold rush. 

Some are currently trying to get the name of the mountain changed from Pikes Peak to Tavá, as a string of mountains, passes, creeks, and other geographical landmarks have seen their names change under the administration of Democratic Gov. Jared Polis. In 2020, Polis established the Colorado Geographic Naming Advisory Board, an advisory board that handles potential name changes in Colorado.

In an interview, Chris Arend, communications director at the Colorado Geographic Naming Advisory Board, explained there are several reasons for changing the name of geographic features. For example, some names can be “derogatory towards certain individuals or groups of people,” while others are changed to “honor somebody.” 

Prior to Pike’s attempted climb of the mountain, the Ute people, the oldest inhabitants of Southern Colorado, had been climbing it commonly for various cultural reasons. 

According to the Ute’s creation story, their people originated from the summit of the mountain —  hence it retains an incredibly important cultural significance for the true natives of Colorado. Due to the peak’s reddish color and immense height that captures the morning light, the Ute people called the mountain Tavá Kaa-vi — the Sun Mountain. 

Taking into account these reasons along with a process of extensive verification, the Colorado Geographic Naming Advisory Board has found success in renaming many mountains, creeks, passes, and other geographic features. 

The most notable of these changes has been the renaming of the 14,265 foot Mount Blue Sky — previously named Mount Evans — after controversy arose due to its namesake, John Evans, the Territorial Colorado Governor of 1862-1865 who was heavily linked to the Sand Creek Massacre. 

On April 12, 2022, the United States Board of Geographic Names (BGN) published a document that entailed the renaming of 25 geographic features — one of which consisted of Tavá Mountain. 

The BGN’s mission is to “maintain uniform geographic name usage throughout the Federal Government,” working alongside other sectors of the federal government to name, preserve, and change geographic features. 

This document, part of a quarterly review list of names proposed and accepted by the BGN, requested that Pikes Peak be changed to Tavá Mountain. An individual named Derwood James Willhite of Divide, Colorado, asked the state to return the peak’s name to the indigenous name — a proposal backed by the words of Chairman Melvin J. Baker of Southern Ute Indian Tribe, who said in the document that “the Tribe supports the discussion of renaming Pikes Peak to the Ute word for mountain.” Efforts to reach Willhite and Baker for this story were unsuccessful. 

Derwood James Willhite claims to be the cofounder of Tava Mountain LLC, a website and Facebook page dedicated to raising awareness and advocating for the original name of Tavá Mountain and its native history in the region.

 The website promotes the hashtag #TakeBackTava on social media, and is in the process of “structuring and forming into a non-profit 501c,” where it will include “Native American board members, with the intention to promote and advocate the original native history and name of America’s Mountain.” However, the website — under the URL http://tavamountain.org/ — cannot be reached, and the Facebook profile has not been updated since early 2022.

The process of changing the name of a geographic feature is not as simple as it sounds. 

The undertaking is long and full of hurdles on a federal, state, and local level. Any United States citizen can request a name change to a geographic feature on the United States BGN website, where the name is put through a process of determining whether the new name is eligible. If a name is eligible, the BGN will go through a consultation process where they will reach out to federal land management agencies of where the geographic feature is located, as well as reach out to the tribes associated with the geographic feature. The BGN additionally consults the state and local communities around the feature. This process can take up to four months and if approved goes to the state for further consideration. 

In Colorado, this is where the Colorado Geographic Naming Advisory Board takes control. The board will go into a deeper consultation process, working more closely with indigenous tribes, holding public hearings and meetings, and actively working with local communities and other agencies of state. Members of the board will then make a recommendation to Polis, who will veto or accept the name, and then send it back to the BGN for the official name change. 

According to Arend, the BGN has accepted the name Tavá Mountain, it is approved on a federal level, and is currently in the hands of the Colorado Geographic Naming Advisory Board. 

However, a few names are in line before the mountain, and due to the lengthy process the Board requires, Tavá Mountain is not on the immediate list of renaming. These names include other well-known Colorado mountains, such as Mount Elbert (proposed to be changed to Mount Daisy) and Kit Carson Mountain (proposed names are Frustum Peak, Lawrence Peak, and Tabeguache Ute Peak).

If Pikes Peak does become Tavá, Arend said it could take place in “a few years,” which would be a historic and groundbreaking moment for “America’s Mountain.” Nonetheless, this name change would only take place once the Colorado Geographic Naming Advisory Board is ready to process Tavá Mountain — and only if consequently approved by the board, the governor, and the BGS. 

The name change would be a significant moment for the local community, state, and nation. Restoring the peak’s indigenous name would mark a milestone in governmental policy regarding the outdoors, demonstrating that geographic features are also topics of multicultural sensitivity, and could serve as a precedent for future geographic (and non-geographic) name changes of all levels.