Weather Window In alpine climbing, we say there is a weather window, when we know the weather conditions will be miserable but there is a brief period of time, when we think the weather will be just tolerable for us to climb our objective. I’ve done countless climbs, where we get our window completely wrong and were soaked from the rain, hiding under a rock, wishing it will stop. You listen closely enough and you can hear all the animals laughing at you. We don’t do this for a living, we get the weekends and that’s it, you may not even get that window some weekend but when you do get that window, you give it everything you got! If the sun going to be out at 2 before the clouds roll in with hailstorms and lightning at 5, I’ll take it and will charge! They say the best alpinist have the worst memories, I’m not that old, I still vividly remember the adventure Aivy, Jocelyn, Xiao had in the North Cascades. We were miserable, cold and tired, we all questioned why we did this but when our window came. The clouds parted, the sun hit our faces, and I could see a smile ever so often from them. I looked around and thought, how lucky are we, how lucky am I, that I get to do it with them. This place and these experiences make me realize how lucky I am to be alive. I used to be a damm good alpinist and even though I don’t do it anymore, I still have the mindset of one, I use the lessons I learned on the mountains and try to apply it to everyday life. When life gets me down, when it’s cold, miserable, and lonely, I hold on to the fact that I’ve been thru it before and I know the storm will pass. When my window comes, I’ll be ready because I remembered how good it feels to be alive. A good amount of family and friends have been going thru a hard time this holiday season. I’m no stranger to that, it wasn’t that long ago I was in dark place for the holidays. I’ll just say you don’t have to go thru it alone like I did, find someone to talk to, it helps. Maybe your weather window has nothing to do with the mountains. Photo 1: Boston Basin Photo 2: Approach to Sharkfin col