Mowich_July 19, 2008

The road up to Mowich Lake this morning was shrouded in pea soup fog and at one point it was actually sprinkling. But right before the parking lot the sun was shining hot and bright.

In the parking lot was TAYer "Snowdog", his son, and a friend on their way for an overnighter at Observation Peak. Together we hiked to Knapsack Pass. It was obvious on the way up that though I walked on snow for 80% of the time that it would be a drag skiing down because there were many gaps between sections.

This lack of conterminous snow led me to descend Knapsack toward Pleasant Peak where the lines looked longer. However, half way down I noticed a good line to the side of First Mother Mountain so I climbed back to the pass and headed to the notch just beyond First Mother and had a great run.

I then headed over to Pleasant and ate lunch on the summit and skied down and ran into another TAYer "Snowman" (?) and his friend Max. The run was so fine I climbed and skied it again and took some pictures of them skiing down.

At the bottom of Pleasant I put on my tennies for the long walk back to Knapsack. From the pass I headed toward First Mother to ski the south face again. Climbed back up to the pass and headed back down to the lake.

My desire to ski rather than walk led me astray as I tried to link snow patches down through the trees. Unfortunately I ended up on the wrong side of the gully and had climb back up and get to the correct ridge. I ended up walking the rest of the way down.

Great day. It looked like the skiing over on the Russel Glacier would be tremendous.

Picture 1: Ready to ski. South slope directly northeast of First Mother Mountain
Picture 2: Snowdog etal and the south slope of Mother Mountain that I just skied behind them
Picture 3: Max or Snowman skiing down Pleasant Peak