Mount Wilson, Southwest Face. Gray Thompson and I spent a late August evening and all the ensuing day climbing a winding route through limestone cliff bands on Wilson’s southwest face. Route finding was the major problem, as we had only one short difficult pitch that demanded piton protection. On one of the several traverses to find weaknesses in cliff bands we saw goats out-doing us and cornered one into posing at a place where he could go no farther. After reaching the south summit, we traversed and descended the glacier east and off the peak. Ours was the first route on the long line of cliffs above the Icefields Highway; although there is space for more routes to the west, we found the quality of the rock disappointing.

Fred Beckey