Excelsior!

Whenever he thought about those three Rocky Mountain peaks, Geologist Leslie W. LeRoy of the Colorado School of Mines got mad. In 1869, it seemed, some Harvard professor had come along to survey the Colorado Rockies, and with typical Ivy League impertinence had named a few of them. The highest peak he measured thus became Mt. Harvard (14,399 ft.), the next highest Mt. Yale (14,172), and a few years later, a third peak naturally was named Mt. Princeton (14,177). Not one Colorado peak bore the name of a Colorado campus.

In 1952 LeRoy happened to complain about this situation to a student named Neal Harr, got him so excited that Harr decided to set matters straight. He pored over maps, and from the hundreds of unnamed peaks he picked seven that fitted his own specifications--more than 12,000 ft. high, and located in easy view of a main state highway.

Though no mountaineer, Harr started climbing every one of the peaks. No. 1 was not right, nor was No. 2, nor were any of the others, up through No. 6. Finally, on his wedding day, Harr made one last attempt. When he got to the top, he found that No. 7 had everything. It was 12,486 ft. high, towered above U.S. Route 40, and to top it all, overlooked Berthoud Pass, named after a former president of the board of trustees.

Last week, accompanied by three friends, Harr climbed to the top once again, there solemnly planted a banner with the strange device, "M." Henceforth, Mt. Harvard, Mt. Yale and Mt. Princeton will have company--a proud peak that will soon appear on the maps as Colorado Mines.

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