Mount Bonneville, West Face Crack and West Face of South Summit. On first viewing the west face of Bonneville, Tony Qamar and I were impressed by the vertical chimney which runs straight up the face to the forepinnacle northwest of the main summit. After puzzling over the confusing description of Mount Bonneville in Bonney’s guide, we concluded this chimney had not been climbed. On August 2 we started out at noon with a minimum of equipment to avoid being encumbered in the chimney. Four pitches of climbing in the vertical chimney brought us to a ledge on the northwest corner of the forepinnacle. From there we climbed two pitches up the west arête of the pinnacle to its sharp spectacular summit. One rappel and some scrambling brought us to the notch behind. From there we walked up scree and talus to a notch on the main ridge. We then descended by the regular route (route 1.) NCCS III, F7. We two were intrigued with the idea of doing a complete traverse of Mount Bonneville. A logical beginning for a south to north traverse is the west face of the south peak. This is an imposing face and is a good climb in itself. From the south end of lake 10,828 we ascended directly up the center of the face to the summit crest and then traversed the exposed ridge to the highest point of the south peak. This required 7 pitches of roped climbing (NCCS III, F6) and took 5 hours. From the south peak we traversed the main ridge to the middle peak and continued over two subsidiary summits to the north summit. The complete traverse including the west face of the south peak took 13 hours. NCCS IV, F8.

Charles Raymond