Cleman Mountain - Waterworks Canyon Loop, East Rim Waterworks Canyon — Sunday, Jan. 12, 2025

I did the canyon/east rim loop counterclockwise, as it should be done. After passing thru the gate (be sure to lock it behind you!) I stepped across the creek and got down to business immediately, climbing the very steep trail up the open hillside. The first two hills are actually the steepest sections, but there is still plenty more steepness the whole way up. At around 2600 feet I came to a flat area with a lot of basalt rock outcroppings. This is where patchy snow began. The trail passes through a notch in the rocks and drops down a rocky scrambly but brief bit that was icy, so be careful here. There then appear to be multiple trails ahead but stay to the left to get back up onto the ridge and avoid the other two elk trails that veer to the right.

The trail eventually hits a false summit at 3200 feet which is here the trail leveled off again and where the snow became constant and deeper. As I approached the top of Peak 3582 I passed another hiker with his two dogs. Peak 3582 is just a high point knoll on the ridge, as there is plenty of higher mountain up ahead. I continued on, dropping down to a long saddle on the ridge between Peak 3582 and the rest of Cleman Mountain. At this point I looked out to the right side (east) to a hillside across the way from me where I spotted a massive elk herd AND a large bighorn herd sharing the same slope right next to each other! I have seen elk and bighorn herds but never together like that before! I took several minutes snapping lots of photos with my high zoom camera.

From the saddle I did see the outline of the connector trail that makes a descending traverse down into Waterworks Canyon. But from the saddle I saw lots of tracks including from the hike from earlier that ignored the connector trail and instead were going straight up and down the very steep snowy slope. So I carefully headed straight down the steep snow which was actually pretty straightforward and led me straight to the creek and stepped over that to connect with the main canyon trail. The canyon was completely snowy but the trail but well packed down from previous hikers. I made my way down the canyon enjoying the sights of some pretty cool basalt rock formations along the way. I came to a place where there was a fork in the canyon, with a side-canyon that branched off to the west. Here there was a pretty cool rocky basalt slope that was tempting to scramble up for a bit of an extra bonus before I resumed my hike down the trail that led me back to the gate and the trailhead to finish the loop!

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