My first real winter climb of the season was the southwest couloir on South Early Winters Spire.Matt was free for the day, so we decided to drive 4 hours each way plus break serious trail for a few hundred feet of steep snow in a couloir. The bang-for-the-buck ratio was not so high on paper, but I had a blast nonetheless.
We snuck in just days before the North Cascades Highway was closed for the winter. This climb is usually done after the road opens in spring, so we had the opportunity to climb it in 'early season' conditions. Which is code language for not much snow over rock.
I had a great time this day. We bootied a bunch of gear (people had left a bunch of nice biners on various fixed pieces), and the views were pretty nice.
The salvation of this day was the weather. It was raining/cloudy/snowing pretty much the whole drive until we got to Rainy Pass, and then things were just bluebird a few miles beyond at Washington Pass. There was little wind, the temps were pretty moderate, and the sun shone. It gave a good chance to put on the crampons and 'bust the rust' on the skills.Here's a picture of Matt that might be one of the coolest photos I've ever had the opportunity to take.
It was also around this time that I had decided to try to put together a climbing trip to Alaska the following spring. Matt had a pretty awesome trip there a couple of years ago himself, and was definitely an inspiration in sharing his experiences.
The day ended with us loading the car at Washington Pass, seeing a beautiful glow of sunset on the Wine Spires / Silver Star massif across the valley. Good times.
