The mountain was named for Foresta Hodgson Wood (1904–1951), who was responsible for the logistics planning of the Project Snow Cornice of the Arctic Institute of North America.

[3] Foresta, with her daughter Valerie F. Wood (1933–1951), were killed in an airplane crash in the vicinity of this mountain on July 27, 1951, during this scientific expedition.

The toponyms were proposed in 1957 by the Arctic Institute of North America and officially adopted in 1960 by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names.

[3] The first ascent of Mount Foresta was made on July 24, 1979, by Fred Beckey, Rick Nolting, John Rupley, and Craig Tillery.

[7] Weather systems coming off the Gulf of Alaska are forced upwards by the Saint Elias Mountains (orographic lift), causing heavy precipitation in the form of rainfall and snowfall.