Josh's alarm never went off. Instead, I awoke to his panic.

"Ben, it's 2:45, let's go."

It took us about a half an hour to get dressed, eat and finish packing. We left camp around 3:30am. The hike down the scree was a pain. It took way longer than I had expected. We roped up at the base. It was light out by the time we started climbing the glacier.

Crossing the glacier wasn't too big of a problem. The snow was firm and we could see where we were going. I made a few wrong turns but it didn't take long to correct. We were glad to have a rope even though it slowed us down some. It took us 3-4 hours to reach the base of the Central Mowich at an elevation of 10,000ft. This is the recommended camp so we were a little behind. The weather looked promising and our skis could get us down in no time so we were in no hurry.

Our pace slowed as the slope steepened. We saw the tracks of the rangers who climbed it a few days prior. I ended up frontpointing most of the face and the Hummels followed in the catlike position. The snow felt good for skiing but I ended up punching through for a good portion of the climb. Jason took his pack off near the middle of the face to get a drink of water. Josh and I had camelbaks so we just rested our sunken heads on the snow. We wore our ski helmets for warmth and protection. We didn't witness any rockfall but there were a few rocks that littered the slope.

We climbed for several hours until we reached the traverse. This is a variation on the Central Mowich that is described in Beckey's guide. The standard route climbs over a rockband at around 12,500ft. Our variation traverses right towards Sunset Ridge at the top of the Edmunds Headwall.

We were hoping to rest before the traverse but we couldn't find anywhere to stop. I ran into ice above a small patch of rock and belayed the Hummels off a half-sunken picket. The slope we were on was a solid 50 degrees and it got steeper and icier from there. It looked as though there was a short section of water ice where the traverse crested in both directions (50ft wide and several hundred feet high of 50+ degrees). We didn't have ice screws so we weren't prepared to climb it and we didn't have a parachute so we weren't prepared to ski it.

The best purchase we could get on the ice below the traverse was a dimple from our ice axes and a few scratches from our frontpoints. I would have liked to have had a second ice tool and should have sharpened my first. The carpet was thicker on the north side of the face so we clawed our way over until we found a spot where we could sink our axes and put on our skis. The spot we found was north of the traverse below the rockband at 12,500ft. It wasn't a very good spot to rest so we switched from crampons to skis, ice axe to ski poles, put on our glasses and headed down.

I felt much better once I had my skis on. Most people would prefer to rappel or downclimb but I was completely dialed to ski it. I was disappointed for not summiting but there was no time for grieving. I wanted to lose some 50 degree vertical so I could rest on a more reasonable slope. All I needed to do was take a photo and get outta there.

We skied a bit of 50 degrees before the slope turned to a steady 40-30 degrees for nearly 2000 vertical feet. We stopped along the way for some much needed food and drink. I wondered if anyone was watching us because it must have looked insane from below. It's ironic how comfortable I felt. The sun softened up the lower portion of the face so we opened up our turns and they became more noticeable.

Josh jumping a small crevasse with one of many bigger and hungrier crevasses to his right. 

Next