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 Don Forest: Quest for the Summits
by Kathy Calvert
Biography of one of the most colorful, some might say eccentric, people the Canadian West has thrown out who also happens to be a climber. At a time when most men are thinking of retirement from strenuous activities, Don was busy setting records: the first person to climb all the 11,000 foot peaks in the Canadian Rockies and Columbia Mountains and the oldest person to climb Mount Logan, Canada's highest mountain.
Apart from Don's climbing achievements, for which he received the Banff Mountain Festival's Summit of Excellence Award in 1990, Don is renowned for his idiosyncrasies which the author and Don's friends have documented in hilarious detail.
Kathy Calvert, Don Forest's eldest daughter started climbing with her father and twin brother in 1963. Her father had given her a liberal background in the outdoors and it led to a ground-breaking job in 1974 as one of the first female National Park wardens. In 1977 she was a member of the first all women's expedition to Mount Logan and in 1989 was on the first all women's ski traverse of the Columbia Mountains from the Bugaboos to Rogers Pass.
She completed her Masters degree in environmental science in 1994 and her published thesis won the Trevithick book prize. She and her husband Dale Portman live in Calgary where she is pursuing a writing career.
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