April 21-22, 2003, Paris Creek Pt.6394 (Skookum)

Erik Sanders and I drove back up the Cle Elum valley to the Fish Lake road for this one.  The trailhead is melted out, (shared with Davis Peak trail).  The first couple miles were skiing/hiking/skiing up the summer trail.  In 1.5 miles a clearcut is met and the trail becomes a road for one mile.  It was snowcovered and so was the trail from here on out as we reentered the forest. It is a beautiful forest with easy skiing.  The summer trail was pretty easy to follow.  
We then turned up the North Fork Paris Creek drainage.  In a mile or so we were in a beautiful basin at 5000 feet where we set up camp.  From camp we headed east into the main basin below Pt. 6394, locally known as Skookum Peak.  A steep headwall and saddle on the south ridge of the peak had no cornice and gave us access to the final south slope.  This slope is a fabulous 1500 foot vertical run into Skookum Basin.  After reaching the summit, we skied great sun warmed corn (2 soft inches on the frozen crust) into Skookum Basin a short way.  We were too tired to do the whole run so we headed back to the saddle with Paris Creek.  The west facing basin was a pleasant 1000 ft. vertical back to camp.
We woke up to rain Monday morning, but waited it out in the tent.  Once it stopped we headed back to the saddle in our skin track from the day before.  One short run into Skookum Basin and then a new gully line back down into Paris Creek.  We were noting lots of wide and not too steep gullies like this rimming Paris Creek basin.  
Then it was back to pack up camp and enjoy the gently dropping creek drainage out to the car.  
We saw incredible potential in Skookum and Jolly Creek basins for long runs and wished we had a third day.  This area is so worth extended explorations with a reasonable approach of 5 miles to camp, and big open slopes.