Sugarloaf Mountain, Southeast Ridge, Selkirks. After a week in the Clemenceau Icefield area where poor snow conditions kept a group of us from doing the final few hundred feet of the northeast ridge of Mount Clemenceau, John Rupley and I decided to take four days of final vacation time for a try at the Mount Beaver-Duncan-Sugarloaf area in the Battle Range of the southern Selkirks. Due to the time limit, we flew from Golden by chopper to a Base Camp near Mount Duncan. In the morning we did not like the rock on the latter, so spent a day on Beaver, where an overhanging ice and rock wall problem proved so costly in time that there were not enough hours to complete a steep ice route on the north face; a quicker rock rib on this face proved impossibly shattered. Frustrated to the highest degree, we struck out the morning of August 10 for what looked like an equally fine objective— the southeast ridge of Mount Sugarloaf, across the Beaver Glacier. The climb went fine: several thousand feet of steep snow and ice climbing, often requiring belays on the exposed sections, then a classic solid rock rib to the summit. The descent was taxing, since we had to retrace the route.

Fred Beckey