There is no doubt that the alpine rock climbing season in the Cascades (roughly mid-june to mid-september) is my favorite time of the year. Three months to send all the routes i've been daydreaming about, drolling-over, visualizing, and ultimately obsessing on through the long dark winter. Of course, I never climb them all, but there's no doubt I try!
This year i'm deep in the throes of a 2-Year RN program (it's great!), and subsequently find myself with very little freetime (and very little sleep). Nonetheless, I do what I can do, and found myself booting up the ever familiar Colchuck Lake Trail on a mild June day, less that 24 hrs after walking out of my Final Exam for a particularly brutal Spring Quarter.
First up on the plate for this season was a climb of the neo-classic Acid Baby, on the Spineless Prow near Aasgard Pass. It's a good warm-up for the year, with a reasonable approach, slightly BURLY 10+ crux, easy descent, and lots of beautiful positions and scenery. This year I teamed up with fun-guy Joel Kauffman for the seasons first romp.
Starting us off for the day
Joel psyched up for the crux on Pitch 2
Pitch 3 is a wee bit chossy...
...but still really fun.
It really starts coming together on Pitch 4
Alpine Bliss
The finale is a classic knife-edge ridge traverse...
The season begins!
