This isn't very polished, but I wrote it for the wonderful Ultrapedestrian Wilderness Challenge, which is one of the coolest events I've ever seen. It's embarrassing, but the night before I tried the ultrapedestrian Chinook Pass route, I felt really nervous. Even though no one would be there, I hadn't told many people about my... Continue Reading →
It was dark, and Westy was digging out a rock in the ground with his ice axe. He scraped around with his hands to find the edges. It took ages to shake loose a toaster-sized rock in the way of the front tire. I tried to stay out of axe-to-head range and looked again at... Continue Reading →
Kulshan is a friendly-looking trapezoid with a smooth snowy appearance from the direction of Seattle. Fittingly, this is the training ground for many beginner mountaineers and is the graduation climb for the largest mountaineering club in the area, The Mountaineers, as well as many others. It's accessible, has a ski lodge, and has tons of... Continue Reading →
I woke up on a tiny rocky ledge overlooking a sunrise. The air was almost-pleasant in its coldness, the rocks had made me aware of specific parts of my back, and I blinked through the haze in my eyes at the upside-down wash of peachy colors and layers of increasingly distant blue mountains like fragile... Continue Reading →
"Why should I climb it? Why does anyone actually care about getting to the top of things?" That's an actual thing I said, about the haystack on top of Mt. Si, around five years ago on one of my first visits to Seattle. I was visiting my partner, Wade, while I was still in college,... Continue Reading →
We climbed Wy'east (Mt. Hood) earlier this spring and it took about 7 hours round-trip, short for a Saturday trip for me. And they weren't the most try-hard hours of my life by any means; definitely a significant portion of that time was waiting around talking to other people on the mountain and me learning... Continue Reading →
It's harder to be adventurous in the winter, for me at least. I like at least some of my adventures to be solo, and I like to do as little planning as possible and carry as little stuff as possible. I am slowly learning to love (?) embracing winter activities like actually packing enough clothes,... Continue Reading →
I have this weird habit of being uninterested in goals that other people have made. Maybe I'm just never going to be over my teenage rebel-without-a-cause mindset. But chances are, the more sought-after a goal is, the less interested I will be in achieving it. I try to get over this, because actually most experiences... Continue Reading →
I'm writing about 100 mountains in the northwest, big and small. The list so far is here. Tiger Mountain, I will admit, is more of a hill. Its name is confusing because, in addition to being literally tigerless, it really doesn't merit such a fierce name at all with its hospitable, forested slopes that reach... Continue Reading →
I'm writing about 100 mountains that are rad. The whole list is here. Epilogue: I came back and successfully finished this trip the next winter. It was 30 miles of snowshoeing. I am happy to have avenged myself, and we saw some beautiful light, but I might not do the south route on Klickitat again... Continue Reading →
I Walked Here 