Kit Carson Marker

The landmark here is a hundred miles away. Kit Carson cut his name into a tree at this summit, or so the story went, and in 1888 the blaze was sawn out of the trunk and carried to Sutter's Fort in Sacramento, where it still sits. What the Native Sons bolted to this granite in 1921 is a bronze copy of the cut, with the explanation underneath. Frémont's party crossed in February 1844 through twenty feet of snow, which is why some doubt the date.

What the plaque says

On this spot, which marks the summit of the Kit Carson Pass, stood what was known as the Kit Carson Tree on which the famous scout Kit Carson inscribed his name in 1844 when he guided the then Captain John C. Fremont, head of a government exploring expedition, over the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Above is a replica of the original inscription cut from the tree in 1888 and now in Sutter's Fort, Sacramento. Erected by Historic Landmarks Committee, Native Sons of the Golden West, 1921

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Emerald Bay State Park — 19 mi
  A glacial fjord on Tahoe's west shore with the lake's only island and a Scandinavian house at the water.
• Genoa — 23 mi
  Nevada's oldest town—a California Trail trading post and Carson Valley ranch country that came eight years before the silver and quietly outlasted it
• Cave Rock / De'ek Wadapush — 25 mi
  One of the most sacred places of the Wašiw—the Standing Gray Rock, a worn volcano the highway was blasted through and climbers bolted for sport, now closed and quiet again after the Washoe's long fight to protect it

More markers nearby

• Memorial to Pioneer Odd Fellows — steps away
• Old Emigrant Road — 2.7 mi
• Kirkwood's — 4.6 mi
• Site of Echo Summit — 8.7 mi