The park's most unexpected feature opened in 2003: Queen Califia's Magical Circle, the only sculpture garden in the United States created by Niki de Saint Phalle, the French-American artist known for her monumental, mosaic-covered figural sculptures. The garden is a walled enclosure filled with nine sculptures and a giant totem, all covered in mirrored glass and colored ceramics, centered on a queen figure that gives the space its name. Queen Califia is the legendary black queen of an island of women from whom, according to a 16th-century Spanish novel, the name 'California' may derive.

De Saint Phalle, who had moved to San Diego in 1994, worked on the garden for several years before her death in 2002. She completed the designs and oversaw much of the construction but did not live to see the finished installation open to the public. The garden is open on limited days and requires a reservation — a reminder that it is a work of fine art inhabiting a city park, not simply park furniture.

Kit Carson Park's Sports Center opened in 1997 and includes what has been one of Escondido's most heavily used facilities: the 22,000-square-foot skate park, unusual in California because it uses wooden ramps rather than concrete. The wooden construction makes the park more adaptable — new ramps can be added without permanent structural changes — but it also requires more maintenance. The city renovated the park in 2009, replacing rotted plywood and waterproofing the wood. More than 10,000 in-line skaters, skateboarders, and BMX riders between ages 6 and adult use the facility each year.

The Sports Center also includes two full-size covered roller hockey arenas, soccer arenas, and a pro shop. The park's overall athletic infrastructure covers softball fields with lighting for youth and adults, soccer fields, tennis courts, and a 3,000-capacity outdoor amphitheater used for concerts and community events.

The 185 acres of natural habitat within the park provide a counterweight to the developed recreation areas. Three ponds — Tree Lake, Duck Lake, and Sand Lake — support wildlife and serve as focal points for walking trails that wind through the park's terrain. A 5-acre arboretum, the Iris Sankey Magical Garden, sits within the park alongside shaded picnic areas and open turf.

The park has also served functions beyond recreation: it has been used as a command post and staging area during wildfires in the Escondido area, when its large open spaces and proximity to residential neighborhoods make it useful as an emergency operations center. A disc golf course and the Girl Scouts of the USA Program Center round out the park's range of uses.

The man the park is named for was Christopher 'Kit' Carson, the frontier scout and guide who served under Captain John C. Frémont on government exploration expeditions in the West, including traversals of the Sierra Nevada. Carson was present at the Battle of San Pasqual in December 1846, five miles east of the park, where Californio lancers defeated a US Army force under General Stephen W. Kearny in a brief but costly engagement. A historical monument commemorating the battle stands on Mule Hill, one mile southeast of the park.

The Battle of San Pasqual is one of those historical events most California residents can't locate — a cavalry engagement in a valley that is now surrounded by suburban development, marked by a monument few people visit. The park named for Carson sits in the same general geography, a few miles from the battlefield, with no particular interest in commemorating the conflict itself. It is, instead, a park for skateboards and sculpture gardens and disc golf — which is its own kind of historical distance.