Feb 24, 2019, Waterworks Canyon/Cleman Mt.
2/24/19
1272
1
The Prairie Eights club was back out in the lowlands today with James and I taking some quite fun laps on Manastash in about 10in of new snow before deciding the time was right to go explore the Waterworks Canyon/Cleman Mt. area at the intersection of the 410 and the 12 just outside of Naches.
We toured up Waterworks Canyon and found a highly supportive crust beneath the 5-7in of new snow that made for pretty safe travel (both from avi danger and more pressingly from sharks) at lower elevations. Fairly wet and heavy snow become significantly lighter around 2,000ft, and we found a fun rock outcropping with two rocks guarding the entrance to gully and each took a lap christening it Gunsight Notch. If anyone else has skied this area or feature we'd love to hear from you!
Above about 3,000ft the crust layer become harder and icier and skinning became more challenging. We switched to booting the rest of the way to the ridgeline and got there right at dusk with gorgeous views of the Yakima Valley. The ski down was some great 1,300ft fall line turns with our headlamps on and then an easy cruise on our ski track back out the canyon to our car. Certainly a fun area with lots of untracked and probably largely unexplored (for skiing) lines in all of the drainages on Cleman Mt. and we'll certainly be back for more.
We toured up Waterworks Canyon and found a highly supportive crust beneath the 5-7in of new snow that made for pretty safe travel (both from avi danger and more pressingly from sharks) at lower elevations. Fairly wet and heavy snow become significantly lighter around 2,000ft, and we found a fun rock outcropping with two rocks guarding the entrance to gully and each took a lap christening it Gunsight Notch. If anyone else has skied this area or feature we'd love to hear from you!
Above about 3,000ft the crust layer become harder and icier and skinning became more challenging. We switched to booting the rest of the way to the ridgeline and got there right at dusk with gorgeous views of the Yakima Valley. The ski down was some great 1,300ft fall line turns with our headlamps on and then an easy cruise on our ski track back out the canyon to our car. Certainly a fun area with lots of untracked and probably largely unexplored (for skiing) lines in all of the drainages on Cleman Mt. and we'll certainly be back for more.
