The smoothly contoured Fairview Mountain was a favourite of the early mountaineers who often used it as a "warm-up" for their more serious climbs. A broad, vertical stripe of snow may be seen in the early summer and this would have made it very distinctive as they approached Castle Mountain on their way to Laggan (as Lake Louise Station was known at the time). In his book "The Glittering Mountains of Canada," J. Monroe Thorington, one of these early mountaineers wrote, "When the train had passed the square-topped tower of Pilot Mountain, it was always Fairview that we looked for. We learned to recognize its outlines far away; long before Storm Mountain and the wooded saddle of Vermilion Pass were near; long before the opening of the Valley of the Ten Peaks drew our eyes to the towering heights of >Deltaform and Neptuak and Temple. Perhaps it was only because we knew the little mountain so well; but little heights always affect the mountain-lover in such fashion. A small peak as a rule is the best view-point because there is still something left to look up to... And so it is with Fairview. Year after year we have come back to it; perhaps as a convenient training walk, but more likely on account of the sheer beauty with which it is surrounded." Dr. Charles D. Walcott, a geologist who visited the Canadian Rockies in the early 1900's wrote that the view from the top was, "worth a journey across the continent to see."