Mowich Lake Snowshoe

Needing to utilize this day off, but mindful of the weekend's avalanche tragedies, we chose to snowshoe the open road from as far as we could safely drive. As bigwindy just reported, chains and high clearance are imperative, but more snow has fallen in the two days since. We only got to within 3 miles of the gate. Three other cars made it farther, but they were plowing all the way. I hope they made it to the lake.

Crossing myriad hare and elk tracks, we also noted pollen-dusted snow and a lovely floral scent in the air. As the rain turned to snow, it was beautiful and serene...until the gunshots. Though repeatedly triggering loud avalanches across the valley, this was no avalanche control team. Four people were firing - nearly a hundred rounds - into a red-dyed snowbank on the clear-cut private land flanking the road.

We considered it imprudent, under the circumstances, to apprise them of the error of their ways, but they took off anyway. Maybe they ran out of ammo. Or, maybe they deemed the camera-toting nature lovers a threat to their fun, especially when every tenth tree stump here sports a phone number or a list of prosecutable violations (target practice is first on the list).