Ken Wilson

Ken Wilson editor of Mountain Magazine for its first decade ’69-‘78, author of The series Classic Rock, Hard Rock, and Extreme Rock and editor of Games Climbers Play among other works passed away June 12, 2016. Ken was a driving force to introduce the world to all forms of climbing from hard rock climbs to alpine adventures through the magazine which ceased print in 1992, then became Mountain Review for a brief stint, then essentially Alpinist arose from those ashes. He argued against poor ethics and style which was the keystone to climbing before the sport climbing age. While Summit, Climbing magazine, Off Belay, and Rock and Ice focused on The Americas, Mountain was the world. As a youngster Mountain was the mag that brought US climbing on par with Czech, South African, Australian, central Europe and the British Isles and when those climbers stepped out in the big ranges. An era gone.

That's sad to hear. I remember being inspired by Mountain, which seemed more stylish than the other magazines, as well as those books.

Is there a more complete biography of Ken written up somewhere?

The link I posted above to the Supertopo thread has a lot of references to commentary and memorial thoughts, though none are complete biographies.

One of my mentors when I was starting out - I have many of his books and piles of Mountain magazine.

rgold wrote:The link I posted above to the Supertopo thread has a lot of references to commentary and memorial thoughts, though none are complete biographies.

Thanks for calling our attention to his passing. Ken's wonderful work has captured and launched decades worth of adventures, forever changing our landscapes, literary and mountainous.