Newman Diefendorf Waffl was killed on a solo ascent of Mount Robson in 1930. An exceptionally warm day and night, was the cause on numerous avalanches. Searchers discovered some torn clothing and a rucksack. In a letter written shortly before his death, Waffl wrote, "Mt. Robson is not so much difficult as dangerous. It is no mountain to trifle with." A tribute written for the 1930 Canadian Alpine Journal states that Waffl "was a climber of unusual skill, strength, and daring, but his daring was never rashness. On the contrary, his climbing was also an intellectual as well as a physical exercise. He was not only a climber, but a mountaineer with a wide knowledge of mountains and mountain lore. He held that no climbing was good climbing which was not also safe climbing. It seems the irony of fate that a climber of such skill and experience, to whom the forseeing and avoidance of undue risk was fundamental, should have been the victim of a mountaineering accident."