Wheeler Peak (New Mexico) : Ask Biography

Mountain information

Name

Wheeler Peak

Elevation

13161 ft (4011.5 m)

Prominence

3409 ft (1039.1 m)

Listing

U.S. state high point

Location

Taos County, New Mexico, USA

Range

Taos Mountains

Region

US-NM

Easiest route

North Ridge

Home | Mountain | Wheeler Peak (New Mexico)

Wheeler Peak is, at 13,161 ft, the highest peak in the U.S. state of New Mexico. It is located northeast of Taos in the northern part of the state, and just 2 miles southeast of the ski slopes of Taos Ski Valley. It lies in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, the southernmost subrange of the Rocky Mountains.

Formerly named Taos Peak, after the nearby town of Taos, New Mexico, it was renamed Wheeler Peak in 1950.

A plaque at the summit states that the mountain was:

Named in honor of Major George Montague Wheeler (1842 � 1905) who for ten years led a party of surveyors and naturalists collecting geologic, biologic, planimetric and topographic data in New Mexico and six other southwestern states.