New Year’s Colockum Snow Wheeling Run
Hosted by Eastern Washington Adventures
Report and photos by Clay Graham / CegPics.com
On Thursday January 1st, 2015 Eastern Washington Adventures Members met up at Curly’s II in Kittitas, Washington for the annual New Year’s Day Wheeling Run. On this run we had only 2 Jeeps. Foxracer’s TJ and my JK.
Around 10 AM we convoyed to Colockum Road and aired down at the parking area near the edge of the forest.
We moved on up Colockum Road following a group from Off-Camber.com. We past a few and got mixed in with their group.
During one of the breaks, we saw some snowmobilers taking photos of the rigs and harassing the guys wheeling. We talk to some of the wheelers, they said the snowmobilers were yelling at them saying they could not be there with rigs and they were turning us in. That is too bad those snowmobilers cannot get along with other type recreationalist. We know for a fact we have the right to drive in the snow a long Colockum Road (a Kittitas County road) and any Green Dot Roads that are not groomed. Snowmobilers turn us in on our Colockum 4×4 Snow Run on Feb 26 2011. I talked to the DNR over them turning us in from that run. Mike Williams, the Recreation Manager of the Naneum Ridge State Forest said in the snow we just needed to track the roads and we would be legal as long as we did not travel cross county or cause resource damage.
We dropped out of the Off-Camber group at Halfway Station and took a break. As we were there, we heard a loud 2 stroke snowmobile cross through the Coffin Game Reserve. It sounded like the one that was with the snowmobilers taking photos of us. I believe it is illegal to even ride snowmobile in the Coffin Game Reserve. Maybe they should turn themselves in. 🙂
After the break at Halfway Station, we back tracked down Colockum Road. A long the way, Foxracer’s right rear tire came halfway off the rim. In no time they had the tire back on and aired up.
At the power lines we tried to take Road 14 and make our way over and out Parke Creek. Well the snow drifts were to deep and dry snow where we could not get up on top. We turned around and head back down Colockum Road toward the Valley.
We aired up where we had aired down that morning. We dropped off one of the riders in Kittitas. Since Curly’s was closed, we then headed across the valley to Durr Road. We took Durr Road over to Selah back to the EWA Club House. After dropping the kids over, we had dinner at the T & T Lounge in Selah.
This was a very fun event and a great day.
Here are some photos of the EWA New Year’s Snow Wheeling:
