Mount Bridgland, East Face. A spell of dry, clear weather the third week of August provided the impetus for a trek up the valley of the Miette to seek a new route on the towering form of Mount Bridgland. By noon the next day, McCarty, Brian Leo, and I were high on the mountain, having spent many tiring and unpleasant hours scrambling and clambering up slabby lower walls—nothing difficult, but failure and a descent would then have been a minor nightmare. After several false starts directed at the impressive buttress above, we worked out a tortuous route with a number of interesting pitches to a sheer, wet headwall, the eastern culmination. Two continuous nearly vertical pitches, with a dramatic overhang which we climbed free, were the mountain’s last defense. Close to sundown, we stood on the shattered summit, wondering how Frank Smythe and his party had had the nerve to climb this beast. By any route, Bridgland is an impressive ascent.

Fred Beckey