The mountain is located entirely within Mount Robson Provincial Park of British Columbia, and is part of the Rainbow Range.

The Texqa’kallt, a Secwepemc people and the earliest known inhabitants of the area, call it Yexyexéscen (striped rock), spelled in Dawson 1891 as Yuh-hai-has-kun, The Mountain of the Spiral Road.

[9] The first documented ascent of Mount Robson, led by the young guide Conrad Kain, at its time the hardest ice face to be climbed on the continent, was achieved during the 1913 annual expedition organized by a large party of Alpine Club of Canada members who made use of the newly completed Grand Trunk Pacific railway to access the area.

The most famous early ascensionist was George Kinney, a founding member of the Alpine Club, who on his twelfth attempt in August 1909 claimed to have reached the summit with local outfitter Donald "Curly" Phillips.

A major controversy over this claim and over the implausible nature of his unlikely and dangerous route dominated the discourse within the Alpine Club elite, and he is now generally presumed to have reached the high summit ridge before being turned back at the final ice dome of the peak.