The first celebrity to attempt ascent of Kriváň was the 30-year-old Habsburg Archduke Joseph in 1806, but the plan was abandoned due to inclement weather although parts of the winding road to the old gold mine high on the slopes had already been improved and a campsite built. The first VIP actually to reach the summit was the 43-year-old King Frederick Augustus II of Saxony in 1840. The plaque placed at the top to commemorate the first monarch who stood there was gradually destroyed by activists in the 1850s-1860s, who would have wished the inscription to include a comment in Slovak and who objected to where the inscription spoke of the Hungarian (ethnic) nation in reference to all the subjects of the Kingdom of Hungary.