Mount Bryce, North Face. Bryce is a well known three-summited peak lying southwest of the Columbia Icefields. The west peak is highest at 11,500 feet. At the foot of its north face Bryce Creek flows at only 4000 feet. Thus the north face of Bryce West is 7500 feet high. Its upper part is a beautiful concave wall of smooth hard water ice. Years ago Fred Beckey had suggested this face to me and I had seen it many times from across the Icefields. Finally, in July of this year, Eckhard Grassmann and I “straightened ourselves” on the face. An 18-mile walk, up the Saskatchewan Glacier, over Castleguard Meadows, up the Castle-guard Glacier, and down into the great hole of Bryce Creek, took us to a camp below the middle peak. From here the face itself went in one day, with a bivouac at the top. The face is steep, steeper than the north face of Athabasca. We exited about 150 feet right (west) of the exact summit.

James P. Jones