The first reported climb was made in 1851 by the British consul Sir Robert Hermann Schomburgk. He named the mountain Monte Tina and estimated its height at 3,140 m. In 1912, Father Miguel Fuertes dismissed Schomburgk's calculations after climbing La Rucilla and judging it to be the tallest summit of the island. A year later, Swedish botanist Erik Leonard Ekman sided with Schomburgk's estimate, and called the sister summits Pelona Grande and Pelona Chica (Big Bald One and Small Bald One, respectively). During the Rafael Trujillo Molina regime, the taller of the two was called Pico Trujillo. After the dictator's death, it was renamed Pico Duarte, in honor of Juan Pablo Duarte, one of the Dominican Republic's founding fathers. At the summit is an east-facing bronze bust of Duarte atop a stone pedestal, next to a flagpole that flies the Dominican flag and a cross.