Another mountain off Matt's wish list!

This is Matt here, cashing in my duties for posting. Fun, fun, fun ski trip last weekend. Met up with a friend from High School to climb and ski Cascade Peak. Started at 3am and made it home by noon. 

I actually love these early morning climbs. You get a killer view of the sunrise and I'm home in the afternoon to play with the kids and spend time with Mary. Best of both worlds! 

Mary and I have a fantastic agreement about my climbing and skiing trips. For every trip I equalize it with a date in the same month. Right now we have a max of 2-3 trips per month. But hey, I've got a good record going so far, and Mary loves all these dates, so it's a win-win. Who knows how many we could pack into a month...I'm game to find out!

The east face of Cascade Peak. This was our goal for the day, to climb and ski it.

Hiking up at 3am. It was about -5 degrees. Around 5am I was questioning whether this was a good idea or not, I was cold. But the sun finally rose and we warmed right up.

Sunrise.

We hiked up the mountain onto a broad ridge and followed the ridge toward the summit.

There were some steep sections where we had to remove our skis and climb.

We came 900 feet short of the summit. There was a cliff band and the snow was getting soft so we opted to put on the skis and get the good snow while it was still soft.



The beautiful thing about the backcountry is you always get first tracks!

Scott and I knew each other from High School and he asked if his wife could come with us. This is Scott's wife on the snowboard.

This is my favorite photo.


The snow was great the whole way down. We skied over 4,500 vertical feet over 3 miles. The last mile was rough as we hopped over boulder down the stream, but we made it home and even saw an elk and a moose.