Mount Forbes is one of the most outstanding in the Rockies and is, in some ways, quite similar to Mount Assiniboine. At 3612 metres Mount Forbes is only six metres lower in elevation and, like Assiniboine, it towers some 350 metres higher than the neighbouring peaks, its pyramidal summit often hidden in the clouds while lesser, but still very respectable, nearby mountains are visible. Mount Forbes is the highest mountain entirely within Banff National Park.

James Outram and Norman Collie's parties combined forces in 1902 to attempt Mount Forbes. Collie greatly admired the peak referring to, "awesome precipices soaring to a ramp of stainless snow whose knife-edged ridges culminate in a sharp pyramid that pierces the blue heavens like a javelin."

There had been some competition and even animosity between the two as Outram had made the first ascent of Mount Columbia following Collie's preparatory exploration of the area. The fine Victorian manners of both gentlemen were demonstrated on this challenging first ascent. At one point Collie, rather than increase the risk to his companions of being the fourth on the rope, abandoned the ascent. Outram feeling that Collie, "more than all the rest, deserved the gratification and honour of being the first to conquer Mount Forbes," sent the two guides down to accompany Collie to rejoin the party. The two guides were Christian Kaufmann and Hans Kaufmann who Collie was to honour by suggesting the name Kaufmann Peaks for two nearby summits.

It is clear from letters written to Charles S. Thompson that Norman Collie regarded Mount Forbes as the most difficult of all his climbs in the Canadian Rockies. This was due to the fact that much loose, "rotten" rock was encountered and also because of a shortage of climbing rope available to the large party.

In 1926, J. Monroe Thorington wrote of Mount Forbes, "What is there left to say of Mt. Forbes -that wonderful mountain we had placed, with some temerity, at the end of our climbing programme? It is a height to which one may look up, as if Kim to the rim of the Himalaya, and say,'Surely the Gods live here.' Skyward rearing,like a watch-tower of the immortals it is a perpetual challenge."

It is not surprising that a peak as prominent as Mount Forbes was named by James Hector of the Palliser Expedition. Edward Forbes was Hector's Professor of Natural History at the University of Edinburgh.

Edward Forbes (1815-1854) was a pioneer in the field of biogeography and palaeontology. As a student at the University of Edinburgh, he studied medicine, but also undertook instruction in natural history.

In 1833 Forbes undertook a botanical tour of Norway. He then gave up medicine as a career and attended natural history lectures in Paris before travelling to Algeria to study fresh-water and land molluscs. He served as naturalist on HMS Beacon, surveying both the Grecian Archipelago and parts of Asia Minor in both 1838 and 1841.

In 1842, Forbes became the secretary and curator of the Museum of Economic Geology, run by the Geological Society of London. In 1843 he was appointed professor of botany at King's College, London. In 1844 he resigned from the Museum of Economic Geology to take up the duties of palaeontologist to the Geological Survey of Great Britain. In 1851 he progressed to professor of natural history at the Government School of Mines. 3 years later he was appointed professor of natural history at the University of Edinburgh, but died 6 months after taking up the position.