Don Forest: Quest for the Summits

David E. Kemp, a former professor of drama at Queen’s University, is
the author of The Pleasures and Treasures of the United Kingdom.

Kathy Calvert, an award-winning author and a member of the first
all-women’s expedition to Mount Logan (Canada’s highest mountain),
has written a biography of her father, a legend in the mountaineering
community.

Colourful, eccentric and completely his own man, Don Forest took up
climbing at an age when most men are thinking about retirement. He
certainly made up for lost time, becoming the first person to climb all
the 11,000-foot peaks in the Canadian Rockies and interior ranges and,
at age 71, the oldest person ever to climb Mount Logan.

Calvert does a good job of capturing her father’s unique personality
in this highly personal but unsentimental account. While there is lots
of laughter, there is also sadness for good friends who were lost in the
mountains and a rueful acceptance of the restrictions that age and
circumstance can place on us all. This beautifully illustrated biography
will captivate climbers and non-climbers alike.