January 5, 2003, Kloochman Rock

I took my 8 yr old son out for my first trip on snow this season.  We headed toward White Pass under partly cloudy skies at 10:00 am.  The snowline on the East side was lower than I can ever recall.  All the tours in CCST2 looked in condition, starting with the easternmost tour, Oak Creek, however, the gate is closed so don't count on making that tour.  It was the first time I ever saw Bear Canyon in condition.
 Our intention was make the Lost Lake tour in CCST2, from Goose Egg snopark.  However, for some strange reason , the main road up to Lost Lake was plowed for quite a ways so we abandoned that idea and went just a bit West to Tieton Airstrip snopark.  All the snowmachiners were congregated lower down at Peninsula Point, using the airstrip for whatever it is they do.

The idea was to have my son ride the dogsled and I would ski behind, tied in.  Since it was our first time to do this sort of thing, I abandoned the skis which is too bad, It would have worked well after the dogs calmed down.  Next time...  We went up 1205? Which makes a loop just West of Kloochman Rock and goes up to the base of Strobach Mtn.  Snow conditions were unremarkable rain crust and the road was churned up raincrust.  We went to the top of the loop and, for safety's sake, turned around and came back down the same way we climbed up.  Lots of sun, lots of views of Kloochman and Strobach, lots of orange bark Ponderosas. We did not encounter any snowmachines. 6 miles, 700 vf, 2hrs.