by Chris Comair
I met Jessica this last summer in the Cordillera Blanca. Our relationship kindled quickly, and a few months later she moved here to Seattle from Montreal. As they would say- the rest was history. I guess we could say that this would be the start of our climbing history. I believe that the definition of [...]
This Andean-esq rhyme clad committing route deserves to be climbed alpine style. We planned to simul-climb the entirety of the 2,000’ face, armed with a rack of screws, pickets, and a couple tiblocks for running protection. We knew that with the long warm days there would be falling ice. We would have to beat the sun before allowing it to bake the upper south west face so an early start and climbing speed would be a big factor.[...]
The North Face has been especially appealing to me. The face is really defined by two significant gullies running almost completely from bottom to top, reminiscent of some sort of double barreled musket. It’s the sort of feature one would should really only climb when conditions are solid, otherwise it would be a game of bullet dodging. [...]
I had always wanted to climb the Leuthold Couloir, an apparent Pacific Northwest classic, but being a grade II climb I just never really got around to it. When we saw a 2 day weather window open up, we made the call to shoot for the Leuthold Couloir with a camp at Illumination Rock. It would be a little easy, but hey, it’s supposed to be a classic.[...]
The Pearly Gates route is a route usually deemed for beginners during the spring and summer. However, when undertaken during the winter, the route really takes on an elevated level of seriousness. Trail breaking, steep hard blue ice, and high winds, all make for what I consider a Cascade classic.
One of the considerations I have had for a long time has been spending a summer season climbing a bunch of alpine routes close to home. The irony of me leaving for peaks abroad during the core of the climbing season here has never been lost on me. For that, I have never actually had the time to climb in the Boston Basin.[...]
First Ascent: Epicing on Urus Este’s West Face is part of Death & Failure, Cordillera Blanca 2018. The Plan The only one of who had really ever thought of this route was Nacho. He brought his students from the IFMGA Alpine School to a different route up the West Face just a few weeks prior. They [...]
Planning my return to the Cordillera Blanca, something in my gut felt off a few weeks before heading out. So much so that a month before flying out I dramatically reduced the length of my trip without really any good reason. Maybe I felt that my success rate of 100% in South America the previous [...]
We got a nice late start at 5am to begin our approach up to the base of the Fuhrer Finger. We had blue skies overhead, but the weather forecast upgraded our possibility of storms from “slight chance” to just regular “chance”. Across the horizon, Mount Adams and Mount Saint Helens were already covered with storm clouds as well. Taking a chance on the “chance”, we made the call to move up. If a storm did start to come in, we’d just have to figure something out.[...]
One of the most frequently asked questions I get from new climbers eyeing Mount Rainier is about altitude sickness. Altitude sickness is one of those things that looms over most new climbers before their first big climbs. Rainier also happens to be many budding alpinists' first big climb. First thing's first, short of trying to [...]
