King's Peak

"Kings Peak is the highpoint of Utah, and of Duchesne County. It is located approximately 42 miles north of Duchesne in the High Uintas Wilderness Area in the Ashley and Wasatch National Forests. The mountain was named after Clarence King, who was the first director of the US Geological Survey. The standard hiking route is a 28.8 mile round trip, so the peak is usually climbed as part of a backpac

king trip. The present-day Kings Peak wasn't known to be the highest point in Utah before the mid 1960s. The USGS hadn't determined whether the current Kings Peak or South Kings Peak was the highest of the two summits prior to satellite measurements taken in 1966. Prior to this discovery, the USGS had marked South Kings Peak as the highest peak in Utah. Any hikers going to Utah's highest summit prior to 1966 would have scaled South Kings Peak instead of the now official Kings Peak! Kings Peak's topographic prominence, 6,348 feet, ranks 19th in the contiguous 48 states. It is one of 57 so-called 'Ultra' prominences, those with more than 5,000 feet of prominence." (http://www.summitpost.org/kings-peak/150376.) Early Utahns named after Clarence King, who was the first director of the US Geological Survey.