by Chris Comair
June 2023, we had been chasing micro-windows in macro-crap-weather conditions. We managed to squeeze in a Baker North Ridge climb in fattest conditions I had ever seen (here’s a previous NR climb), a jaunt up the Liberty Bell’s Becky Route, a 1.5x laps on a new Mazama route called Earl Gray, and a few days in Leavenworth. Every week, the weather directed us where to go, and this week, it directed us to Snoqualmie. Voie de Chaise was at the top of our list there. [..]
I didn't sit down to take the time to write anything after this climb, so this entry is more of a photo dump with a bit of commentary. Stuart's North Ridge definitely earns its spot as a Cascades ultra-classic in my book. Thanks Alan Rousseau for leading this climb, one of the coolest guys in the mountains out there!
Jess and I took a random Tuesday off with the hope to climb. As of Monday early morning, the overall conditions looked too warm and we called off the climb…or so we though. Sitting around at 5pm and feeling guilty/fat, we said “Why not shoot for Dragontail?” We had just got a good look at the route previous week during our run up Colchuck and we figured it would be pretty stable in the warmth. And similar to Colchuck, we wanted to get to know the route we would use to descend our more technical winter/spring attempts on the peak. [...]
After a fairly intense (ie. extremely dangerous) experience on Mount Hood’s North Face recently, Jess and I were feeling pretty risk adverse in approaching a tight weather window between periods of heavy unseasonal precip. We’ve been wanting to climb Colchuck’s North Buttress Couloir, but had never actually climbed Colchuck to begin with. Why not check it out? [...]