Clause Peak traverse

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TomTuriano
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Clause Peak traverse

Post by TomTuriano »

Today, May 5, 2005, my friend Forrest McCarthy made an incredible one-day ski-raftaneering traverse of Clause Peak. With a 6:30am start from Cliff Creek, he summitted Clause Peak at 11:30am. He said the snow was rotten because of a lack of freeze and he was a bit nervous. He skied the northwest bowl, which is probably a first descent. The snow was a bit wet, but consistent and not too steep. (see photo below)

Once in Fullturn Creek, he was able to ski down quite a ways, but then had a couple of miles of misery in a tight gorge with bushwhacking, postholing, and traversing steep muddy sidehills.

At the confluence with Willow Creek, Forrest inflated his Alpaca Raft and floated the bulging creek over 10 miles to the Hoback River, where he took out and took refuge at the Camp Creek Inn. He called me from there to check in at 7:30pm.

Forrest reported that the river was rocky at first, but after Mumford and Shepard creeks joined in, the river was plenty full. During the descent, he reported at least a dozen portages around log jams, and several Class 3 drops, the biggest rapid being directly below the confluence with Adams Canyon.

This is an amazing one-day adventure and much of it done in the rain!

Good going Forrest. I wish I had taken up you up on that one.

Thomas Turiano

Image
Photo taken from PowWow Point

Image
Forrest's route over Clause Peak
Last edited by TomTuriano on Fri May 06, 2005 7:48 am, edited 1 time in total.
TomTuriano
Site Admin
Posts: 170
Joined: Thu Dec 02, 2004 11:02 am

email from Forrest

Post by TomTuriano »

Forrest says:

Willow Creek is a great float. Great Alpaca Rafting. I would do it again. Probably not from Clause. If you went in the road to Adams Creek you would still hit 90% of the good floating. It is a 5 mile walk in along the road. The one for sure class 3 drop I believe was right below Adams Creek. The rest is probably class 2. Miles of it. A fair amount of wood and beaver dams. All the strainers where visible in plenty of time. It might be a good place to hit with a chain saw in the fall.

There is no place to view if it is running before hand without trespassing. However, I think you can figure that if the Hoback and the Grays are both running Willow is.
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