Quick Stats

• Capitol Peak: 14,130 ft.
• "K2": 13,664 ft.
• Elevation gain: 5,300 ft.
• Approach distance: 13 miles (round trip)
• Climb distance: 4 miles (round trip)
• Climb difficulty: Insane (Class 5)

When I took my lunch break on Friday, June 25, I noticed right away how hot and muggy it was. I checked the models one last time after lunch, and made the "go" decision to chase. EXWX chaser Marcus Hicks and I left Sioux Falls at about 3pm, and set our initial target as Brookings, SD. En route to Brookings, we quickly learned that the dryline was moving eastward more quickly than we thought. We reset our target to Marshall, MN, and began trying to play catch up.

When I left work to chase on June 17, I did not believe we were going to see much. I figured we would see a good wall cloud for 15 minutes, then everything would squall out. The conditions looked solid, but I knew there was a massive amount of energy in the atmosphere, which usually means things will turn into madness quickly. However, with only one chase in me for the year, I decided to go out anyway. Little did I know what I was in for: A more intense chase day than my Manchester intercept of 2003.

A bit of background: I have been working to get plugged in to the mountaineering community in Colorado, and recently met Matt Payne of 100summits.com, a strong up-and-coming website dedicated climbing in Colorado. I found out that Matt needed a partner for the weekend of June 3, so I made the decision, juggled some meetings, and committed to the trip. Less than 48 hours after the decision was made, I was on the road for Colorado.

This chase day was full of two things: Uncertainty and structure. It appears there was insufficient low-level rotation to generate enough spin to create tornadoes, however there was plenty of energy in the atmosphere to create some incredible storm structure. What really made the day was the fact that we had isolated supercells with very little interference in the mid-levels. This creates an environment where storms can initiate and grow without turning into big messes. Although we didn't bag a tornado, it was worth the chase.