Trip Report
Mount Wow
A variety of wintry route conditions (as well changing weather) made for an interesting, educational, and memorable trip.
Dave Morgan
- Sun, May 14, 2017
- Mount Wow
- Scrambling
- Successful
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- Road suitable for all vehicles
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Due to recent melt/freeze cycles we alternated between snowshoe conditions to rock hard frozen snow overlaid by a thin layer of freshly fallen snow. The hard snow was mostly under trees, with snowshoe conditions mostly out in the open.
Encountered a thin layer of snow at ~4500' on the west ridge (the ridge with w/access from the boundary trail). We ascended this ridge through the rock scramble problem at ~4800 (wet rock overlaid by frozen moss with a thin snow layer) until able to descend to ~4600' in the basin just west and below the false summit. Numerous but low volume surface slides (with freshly fallen snow) led to our doing a quick and short ~200' traverse at ~4800' to reach a narrow/steep gulley affording access to the upper plateau. This steep gulley contained hard snow (layered with fresh snow) which provided for solid self belay ice axe placements on both ascent and descent. Slopes leading to summit were in great shape with some blue sky and sun breaks. We avoided the rock problem on descent by descending the southern edge of the basin to ~4400', then headed roughly south with a slightly ascending traverse to regain the ridge leading to the boundary trail at ~4500'. Total time was ~11 hours with 5.5 hours up.