Trip Report
Winter Scramble - Mount Wow
Great views with a variety of snow conditions throughout the day (from cold and powdery, to warm and wet). A surprisingly good day for this ~9 mile, ~4400’ gain trip.
Dave Morgan
- Sat, Dec 28, 2019
- Winter Scramble - Mount Wow
- Mount Wow
- Scrambling
- Turned Around
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- Road suitable for all vehicles
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As elsewhere these days, we had minimal snow with snowshoes not needed until reaching the plateau (~5200’) between the false (5614’) and true (6040’) summits of Mount Wow. Warming conditions led to small slides that prevented an ascent of the final ~200’ to the summit. We used snowshoes above 5200’, and appreciated micro-spikes on the thin snow cover between ~3500’ and ~4100’. We brought but did not use our crampons.
The day started out cold with brisk temperatures and a thin coat of powder snow above ~3500’. Around 11 am temperatures became much warmer (consistent with the forecast snow level of ~6000’) which led to massive tree drip and our being bombarded by clumps of snow falling from the trees above. We quickly traversed the basin west of the false summit through a break in the vine maple/alder at ~4800’, and ascended through steep forested terrain (on the northern edge of this basin) to reach the plateau. We opted to forego the final ~200’ as it involves a traverse of steep rocks (thinly covered with snow, made even thinner and more slippery by recent small slides), with substantial amounts of unreleased snow still above.
Our total time was ~9 hours, with 5 hours on the ascent, 3 hours for the descent, and an hour for breaks here and there. Photos from this and other trips to this venue can be seen here