Longtime climbing pioneer and inventor Bill Forrest died on
December 21 while snowshoeing near Monarch Pass in Colorado. He
was 73. Forrest is perhaps best known for his company Forrest
Mountaineering, and for his innovations including a cammable
nut, the Titon, the first modular ice tool, the Mjolnir, which
is displayed at the Smithsonian, as well as one of the first
commercial harnesses with leg loops and technical ice tools with
aluminum shafts and steeply drooped picks. One the rock, Forrest
was a longtime fixture in the West, with numerous first ascents
including the Forrest/Walker in 1972 in the Black Canyon of the
Gunnison, a 2,500-foot line on the then unclimbed Painted
wall."The 24th pitch was the hardest I'd ever done," Forrest
said in an interview with the Denver Post earlier this year. "I
came close to dying. I'll never forget that pitch. I still think
about it now and then." In 1970 Forrest made the first solo
ascent of the Diamond on Longs Peak, and was in the same era
active in the Mystery Towe