questions about Mt. Catherine route?

Yeah, I once dug a nice ramp up out of that creekbed when we hit it a bit too far up toward Nordic Pass to want to head back downstream to said bridge (plus at that point we weren'te exactly sure how far the bridge was). At least it didn't have much flow where we crossed it.

Volken's description is indeed useful for doing at least one good route. I've heard of people being hassled for being on the nordic trails w/o passes. We're old and lazy and respect the ski area's right to require passes on their groomed trails (and have some $ which to some extent goes with being older) - when we've gone up there we've bought a nordic pass which happens to be good for 2 chair rides so we've done a warmup run and then took a second ride to the top of Hyak and head off from there (or save the warmup run for end-of-day if someone in the group is worrying over "first tracks").

these are two legit ways to Mt C without a trail pass or lift ticket:

1. Hyak Snopark. Ski out a little ways on the Iron Horse Trail, then a go W where convenient through woods to Rd 9070, the Cold Creek groomed ski trail, which is the "Common Corridor" up around to S side of Mt C. See old guidebooks. Free public use is part of the deal for The Summit's use of National Forest land, thanks to Mountaineers and others. They don't advertise this.

2. X54 Gold Creek Snopark, walk under I-90 and up into Hyak housing development to Nordic Pass Trailhead , blue diamond blazed trail up through forest between the lift areas just E of Hyak Creek to Nordic Pass. It crosses several groomed trails. Use "Search" for a detailed report from Gary Westerlund.