The Moose called in sick this morning leaving Adam and I to track out the remaining storm snow. We got up to the parking lot for about 9AM, however the outside air temperature gauge in Adam's truck was showing -21C, which caused a lot of procrastination.

We finally got under way around 10AM with the temperature remaining unchanged. Were it not for the blue skies we might have sat there all day. We opted to give Rowe Bowl a try as it didn't involve a long cross country snowboard and the sooner we got climbing the warmer we'd be. It didn't take long to warm up, in fact we soon were very warm. I pulled out the snow study kit and put a thermometer in the shade.... 0C? WTF? At this point we were just over 100 feet above the road and not very far at all from the parking lot. A ridiculous change in temperature over a very short distance. We debated continuing the climb or returning to the road and heading to the lake. The plan was that if it was still stupid cold on the road, we'd turn around and head up Rowe.

It was chilly, but the extreme cold was gone. We headed to yesterday's up, put a food cache on the lake and climbed up. Adam agrees with us - steeper is better - we were on top in 45 minutes. We charged down the powder through the North Knob trees, refueled at the cache and were back up top in another 45 minutes. Another lap down the goodness then we stopped for a leisurely JetBoil lunch complete with tea.

One more time up with a slightly slower pace of about 55 minutes. This time we headed to the Bowling Alley and I navigated us to an untracked lane. Whoops and yells down to the lake were followed by the long cross country snowboard to the vehicle. Three laps off the knob usually leaves you just, just shy of 5,000 feet, but we had some money in the bank from the aborted Rowe Bowl climb this morning. Total up today was 5,050 feet.

The forecast looks warm. If the Moose is healthy tomorrow I think we'll hit up his namesake. If he's not, I'll be solo and will need to dig pretty deep to find the motivation to bang it out. Three days and 22,000+ feet are taking their toll.