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"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of convenience and comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” -MLK

The measure of an alpinist is not in what they can climb but in what style a climb is done. This is not an original idea and is the driving force of what climbing in alpine environments means to me. Style is everything, it is the art that makes alpinism so beautiful and inspires me to consistently approach mountains in the way I do. 

On the seventh of August me and my climbing partner James Nash set out on an ambitious goal of biking from Ashford Washington to the paradise parking lot below Tahoma, climb the Kautz in a fast and light style up and over taking the D.C down to then bike back to Ashford in one continuous push. The biking alone called for 25 miles and 4,500’ of elevation gain. We got crushed in a beautiful and insightful way.

At 2230 we departed the IMG parking lot, quickly entering the bubble world of our headlamps and the cool air whizzing by our heads as we set pace on our bikes. As the grade picked up entering the park we entered a low hanging cloud layer, the experience of the empty park at this time was perfect for the ride but the near white out conditions lead to a nauseating 2.5 hours of biking to get to paradise. Although I did not feel much physical fatigue on the ride, the soul crushing nature of the lack of visibility already chipped away at a weak mental game for me at the tail end of a long guiding season. Our minds work like a bank when it comes to digging deep, the committing lines must be balanced with low risk and recovery activities to keep funds available for withdrawal, early in this quest I was already hitting overdraft fees with my withdrawals. At paradise we transitioned slowly and talked about what we would already do differently, not using frame bags had bruised the living hell out of my ass bones and left me depleted. Overall the nutrition component had been good but the energy/caloric deficient I am fighting against was too great. We departed the parking lot and began to make our way up towards the nisqually glacier.

As the trail spit us off of the muir path and heading down to the remnants of what was once a proud glacier, now no more than complex moraine with loose scree and wobbly boulders we made our first navigational error that ate precious time. We dropped too low, becoming very apparent after our eventual bail when we took a much higher line across the nisqually. The condition of this entry point is not in ideal condition this time of year and overall our next attempt for this project will be in early to mid July 2026. We continued up varying terrain eventually starting up the steep snow and scrambling through a steep insecure rock step to gain the ridge. Although fun staying on the snow would have saved time and mental capacity compared to the demanding low fifth class high consequence rock we ended up on. At this point our pace, mine especially, had slowed to a crawl, but the wild sights around us made up for the beat down we were taking. A blood moon began to set to our west almost looking like a sunrise. Its light lit up our surroundings dancing off of the chossy rock and thin layer of freeze from the previous day's storms. Across the valley a cloud layer laid framing the tatosh range in its jagged beauty, Mount Adams jutting out definitely from the cloud layer off in the distance. Defeat was clear in our unspoken communications and also in our conversations, although we were deep in our respective caves we had each other in this mutual feat of repentance in the mountains early that morning, I saw James for where he was and he saw me in my entirety. We continued up a ways climbing over some steeper snow that had formed a slight ice layer on it before I called it. Leading into our push a lot of questions of descent route had risen due to part of the upper mountain having large crevasses open. The thought of later in the day descending all of this and crossing the choss pile of the nisqually was about as appealing as this attempt had been in general. 

We sat, perched high above the valley below, cars begging to break through the cloud layer on the road as the sun rose and the always present procession of tourists made their pilgrimage up to paradise. We ate snacks, laughed about the fact e-bikes would have made this a lot nicer or driving up to paradise for that fact. Yet we had made a conscious effort to hold ourselves to an ethic we believed in, a style in which it felt pure, and adventurous, a bar to measure ourselves against. On our descent we admired a mountain goat as it agilely hopped across the moraine, dancing like a spirit in the mountains. We got back on our bikes and zoomed back to IMG enjoying the views and the feelings of having tried something big and failed big. 

The Slog will have to wait till next year, many reflections on our tactics will lead to a successful attempt of this. Stats;

-59.3 miles human powered

-8,700' of elevation gain

-11 hours 33 minutes

We don’t go to the mountains for it to be easy.