Mt. Waterman and Snowcrest/Kratka Ridge

Hi all.......I've been living in Glendale for 3 years now and was just made aware of Lady Waterman this past Friday at the check out counter at Traders Joes. In hindsight I'm ecstatic that I'm just now discovering this little gem mainly due to the fact that it wouldn't have been open had I discovered it when I first moved here in Jan of 05. It would have been very painful to know of its existence during that killer 04/05 dumpage and not be able to ride it legally. I had seen the "ski lift" signs around the palmdale split in Oct 2007. I brought it up to someone only to receive little or no information.......and so I forgot about it.

That is until.............

By all the blessings in the universe I was chit chatting this past Friday Jan 25 at TJ's with the check out clerk and the question was asked, "ya diggin the rain?" to which I replied "Love it!" which brought forth "ya gonna go play in the snow?"-He was very intuitive to pick up on how happy the mere utterance of rain had made me- I replied with a resounding "yes suri Bob!" and from there the enlightenment ensued with great fervor and delight! He began to tell me a bit about the small hill and its peacefulness, of hiking trips up the face and descents onto highway 2, and best of all........wait for it..............IT'S ONLY 20 MILES FROM MY HOUSE!......pardon........I just had to let it out.

I immediately went home and began my world.wunder.web research to find out the man had indeed been telling the truth. My jaw was low and my stoke was high as I read more and more info about Waterman. I couldn't dig for long because Mammoth was calling this past weekend and it was an event not to be missed......especially at June.....talk about face shots! I digress.........After returning home yesterday I got back on my compu-machine to do some more interweb searching and found this keen thread.

I went back to the start of the thread (Oct 14) and read it -totally captivated by this point- Cover to cover. To read about this gem and hear the ups and downs over the past four years has been utterly fascinating that is, all the way up to the end where the thread dies -oddly enough- on Friday, Jan 25th, the day I was blessed with the great news of MW! I thought for sure there would have been more activity on this thread due to the amounts of snow that has dropped in the past few days. In any case keep the Mount Waterman stories comin.....I'm hooked!

I am beyond grateful for this discovery. After hearing this great news on Friday and researching with sheer disbelief I began to realize that one of my dreams had come true.

You see, for years I've had a burning desire to live near the slopes. I've literally had dreams for years of waking up to discover that a ski resort had suddenly been thrust upon my neighborhood or that it dumped in the local foothills inspiring me to hike/ride them. Waking up from those dreams was always arduous as the truth would wash over me like a sobering kick to the groin!

The base was at 18" when I left for Mammoth on the 25th and upon return MW now has a 5' base (according to their site) I'm so stoked that this is happening in my backyard. I can't wait for opening day! As of right now it looks like Feb 8th (DAMN does it really take that long to plow?)

I hope this turns out to be a prosperous season for you Lady Waterman!

Take care all and see you on the hill!!!!!

P.S. Does anyone know of any -and I mean any- employment opportunities on the hill?

P.S.S Anymore stories of the backcountry lines down to highway 2 and the hikes that followed would be greatly appreciated.....I think someone mentioned it being called "¿Avi?"
 
Welcome, SomeWhenElse! I think this thread has brought more users to Liftlines at FTO than any other. :lol: Stay tuned...
 
Some One Else,

Yes, we are definatly looking for employees! You can contact me through email at TomPMoriarty@aol.com or my cell is (951) 445-3625 or at Newcomb's Ranch (626) 440-1001

We are waiting for Caltrans to start on the road from the 6000 level to MW and hopefully that will start today. The drifts on the road are probably over 10ft. in spots. We finally got Matt out of there yesterday so he could go to chemo, they were stuck up there for 5 days. Hopefully they will get one lane punched through so we can get a team up there to shovel out which is going to be a difficult task now that the snow has settled and set up. Once we are dug out we can get the Health Dept. up there to sign off. Todd came down AVI yesterday to get to the 6000 ft. closure and said it was the best ever! Once we get it open it is going to be a great season.
 
Tom,

What about parking? Has it always been right there across the street? Has there ever been some sort of shuttle? Long walks from other turnouts?
 
Yes, the parking is along the roadway across from the lift. When Lynn Newcomb owned the resort we had shuttles on the busy weekends. I'm sure Rick will do something in that respect.
 
New Update!

Still dealing with the health dept. issues. We had to submit plans of the kitchen to them and was told that it could take up to 4 weeks to get through Plan Check. So I called Michael Antonovich of the County Supervisor's office and explained the situation and they are going to try and expidite the situation. We are also looking into a Hot Dog cart or catering truck if the Foerst service will accept that till we can fix the county issues.

As for conditions, the base is like 7-8 feet and about 4 inches of new today.
 
Road is still closed at 6000, they are saying it can be ready by Thursday or Friday if we are able to open. As of right now it is plowed to Buckhorn.
 
Tom Moriarty":uwl0g3tr said:
Road is still closed at 6000, they are saying it can be ready by Thursday or Friday if we are able to open. As of right now it is plowed to Buckhorn.
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if plowed to buckhorn, why not open to buckhorn?
 
That would be a question for Caltrans I guess. The answer is probably they are still working on the road plowing out the parking areas (turnouts) and since the ski area is not open they don't want traffic in there till they are done and ready to open to all traffic (skiers, riders, and snow players).
 
Sorry for highjacking this slightly, you mentioned Buckhorn there Tom, do they still ski there at all? There website was a little unclear if anyone could role up and use the facilities.

Buckhorn Website
 
Tom Moriarty":32wowcm6 said:
That would be a question for Caltrans I guess. The answer is probably they are still working on the road plowing out the parking areas (turnouts) and since the ski area is not open they don't want traffic in there till they are done and ready to open to all traffic (skiers, riders, and snow players).
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thats interesting. the ski area hasnt been open for 5 years.
the road has not been closed at 6k.

how are you going to get the ski area open if the road is closed?

or is it just the same old...private resort.
 
Sorry for highjacking this slightly, you mentioned Buckhorn there Tom, do they still ski there at all? There website was a little unclear if anyone could role up and use the facilities
Click to expand...

Yes, Buckhorn is open and skiing. Usually you can walk-in and they have you sign a wavier and pay $5. They have a motivated crew and in 05/06 an avalance took out there Lodge. They rebuilt in less than 6 months.

or is it just the same old...private resort.
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I have been by Watermen and the mountain has been getting skied after storms. They(owners, staff, famillies, and friends) have the mountain to themselves and apear to not know how the remodeling/plans/permit process works.

Caltrans is a hole other can of worms. Angeles Forest is the most visited of our national forest and they don't have funding to clear roads? If you've been up during or after snow, the circus that performs at every turnout is way to overwhelming the local athorities and that makes for long frustrating days. I can understand why they they close things every chance they get( fire danger, weather and road conditions). I can't understand how they take that much time to re-open when other roads(mt. rose hwy @9,400') are open year round?

Bottom line is poorly managed Watermen is located in a poorly managed forest and on a poorly managed road. Best bet for riding in Angeles Crest is to join Buckhorn and/or learn how to earn your turns.
 
I have been by Watermen and the mountain has been getting skied after storms. They(owners, staff, famillies, and friends) have the mountain to themselves and apear to not know how the remodeling/plans/permit process works.
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i think you're right swammy. one of the previous owners died doing just that. call is tragic...call it karma.

i hope the new owner isn't trying the same thing. but its really starting to look like he just bought himself a skiing country club on federal land.
 
skierX":30g9upaw said:
i hope the new owner isn't trying the same thing. but its really starting to look like he just bought himself a skiing country club on federal land.
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I think that's more than a bit unfair. Now, I'll grant you that this whole opening-tied-to-foodservice-permits thing is a bit puzzling to me (why can't you run the lift without foodservice, customer yield issues notwithstanding?), and we all know how slow such bureaucratic stuff can be, but it's way, way too soon to start slinging arrows about the new owner's intentions. Tom has made it very clear just how much effort is going into the place, and the inability to get personnel (ski area or county/state) into the place has to be a hindrance to getting things done.
 
Agreed- we'll just have to wait and see how it goes down, but they've clearly been putting in enormous effort into the place, and I think they deserve credit for doing what they can with what they have, given the unforeseen obstacles that have been thrown into their path.

I personally had written off ever riding Waterman again before a few weeks ago, and just the knowledge that in all likelihood it'll happen again soon, be it this season or next, is enough to make this rider very happy.

Here's hoping Waterman can make it happen this season.
 
I agree with admin. Mt. Waterman has been closed to then public since 2001 and must be viewed as a startup with these bureaucratic hurdles like the food service. We'll have to wait and see how it looks once they actually open.

Long term I do see issues. One is size and convenience vs. Baldy. The other is the road. Waterman is a great mountain for powder skiing but it will almost never be open on big powder days.
 
I also agree with most of you and what you are saying with regards to getting Waterman fixed. But if the health dept. needs plans submitted to the building authority(city or county). Then that well open the project to upgrading the facility to current code. It well take more time and more money to get that done. IMHO the Waterman spirit/vibe, that feeling that this was a special place, is gone. Now everytime I go near that place(angeles crest) there is some agency adding some restriction to what activities I and other have enjoyed doing for 20+ years. Some examples, going out of the ski area boundries(sometimes ok sometimes aginst the law), Parking at the base of Waterman is subject to being a "firelane" on occasion(your car gets towed while your skiing), The misadventure pass that is supposed to save our forests has the rangers playing metermaid at $5 a pop while we the already paying public has to try and figureout what area are fee areas and what areas are not. All the while the forest service closes camp/picinc areas, tiolet facilities are a mess, bear proof trashcans are broken and could be fix with a nut and bolt or replaced with the brand new ones that are in a storage facility(according to fish and game). The loss of Lynn Newcomb started this trend. Lynn kept the forest agencys motivated in a way that kept the mountain open when safe and allways was ready to roll when the snow fell. It is a clear case of the blind leading the blind and that this situiation well not soon end. I'm truely heart broken that we have 7' of snow and no lift are open to the PUBLIC only the members of the "work parties".
 
I'm going to say this once and those of you who don't like it can go elsewhere. First, the Metcalf's are not operating a private resort and have no intention of running a private resort. They have about $500K into saving this mountain from demise and have a lot of governmental hurdles to clear that are put in place for YOUR safety. They are paying salaries (mine included now) to get the place in operational shape. For the money they have put in they could have bought a lifetime season pass to Vail and airline tickets to get there.

THEY WANT A RETURN ON THEIR INVESTMENT!!!

Caltrans has been working hard to get the road open despite mechanical problems with machinery and new crewmembers whose first real snow experience was 6 feet of snow. So whoever you lowlifes are that have been swearing at them and giving them a hard time, WE DON"T NEED YOU UP HERE! Remember, the Grapevine is the #1 priority and when it goes down some of our resources go there making it difficult to keep up with the "2". Caltrans has promised to have the road open when we are ready to operate. As for the Health Dept., there were things we have to do that we didn't know we would have to do and have to do it because the previous owners F'd up. It is not current owners fault that the resort did not run for 5 years. The L.A. County health dept. is being very helpful and our situation went from the bottom of their workpile to the top because of help I got from Michael Antonovich's office because everyone wants to see this 'Recreational Site" OPEN.

So, once again please bear with us as we might be open this weekend but if not next weekend for sure. If you can't deal with the process we are going through legally, then stay at Baldy and enjoy yourselves.

Tom
 
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